High school students from around New York City work alongside museum staff to explore community, technology and education at CMOM. Through experiences that increase their confidence and independence, Junior Staff Interns grow into valued members of the CMOM team.

In the Spring Session of the Junior Staff Internship (JSI) program interns design an online children’s book that illustrates CMOM’s approach to learning. As part of CMOM’s work as outreach partner in the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready To Learn Grant this year’s children’s books were tailored to introduce early childhood math concepts in a fun and accessible way.

Junior Staff Interns in their own words

The Junior Staff Internship Program is different every season. In the summer, we give tours of the museum so that children can learn by seeing and doing rather than reading. The teaching methods we use vary with the exhibits the museum houses at the time. In the fall, we think of easy ways that children can learn certain subjects such as early childhood math, spelling, and colors. We set up free workshops for children about the subjects. In the spring, we create children’s books for the museum incorporating an assigned subject into the book.

We go through training to learn how the minds of children comprehend information. We analyzed and discussed different behaviors and at what ages we can observe these behaviors in children. We have to be careful what we write and say ensuring the vocabulary we use to explore different topics is utilized in a way children will understand. We work in groups so that everyone could bring their unique experiences with children.

-Pranitha and Giovanni

In addition to the children’s books we presented ideas for new math related exhibits to the Museum’s staff. For the presentations, we did research on the Museum’s existing exhibits. We got to meet Martha, a researcher from Michael Cohen Group, and learned about different kinds of research. We then created presentations of our findings and proposed exhibits to CMOM’s staff.
 
In the spring we also went to different places in the city to explore how other museums functioned. We visited the Staten Island Children Museum to see how a different children’s museum reaches their mission .We visited the Sony Wonder Lab to see what technologies they were putting out and their implications in the real world such as in hospitals and the newsroom. We went to P.S. 1 to look at modern art and discuss unconventional mediums of art. We saw photographs and videos and played video games only to discuss the deeper meaning as of each work of art as a group later on. At the Museum of Moving Image, we observed how media has evolved over time. Overall our experience at CMOM was fun and creative, an experience we all will never forget.

-Marcus and Anivette

Funding for the Junior Staff Internship Program has been provided by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Pinkerton Foundation and U.S. Department of Education.