<<Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:04:32 -0600 From: "Sara E. Clinard" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: ideal education facilities We are in the process of planning a new museum building. Has anyone recently built a new building or education wing? We are wondering what an ideal education department would have. We are a natural history/science museum that serves a 13 county (rural/small town) area of about 300,000 people. Here are our questions 1. How many staff persons do you have for your new facility? 2. How many classrooms 3. What kind of labs? 4. What kind of storage space 5. What is your optimum square footage for education?>> ---------------------------- Sarah, The North Carolina State Museum of Natural History in Raleigh should be opening their new facility soon, if I recall correctly. They spent a great deal of time considering the same questions. Unfortunately, I've misplaced their cards from my files, so I can't give you specifics. As for ideal education facilities, wow....that's a whopper of a question. I think that the Smithsonian Institution's Naturalist Center is an ideal education facility (of course my bias is no doubt showing!). It should probably be more accurately described as a public study center. We maintain a collection of some 30,000 objects, a 2,400 volume library, and scientific equipment such as microscopes for public use. We have two museum staff members plus one teacher provided by the local schoool system, and a volunteer staff of about 60 docents. We are currently serving just under 4,000 students as part of scheduled school group visits annually and about 10,000 total visitors. The entire facility could be called a classroom and laboratory since it allows direct, hands-on access to all the resources. Classes or individuals can do structured activities or can do independent investigations. Most of the classes that have visited this year, have designed their own hands-on programs (with our guidance and approval of course) At about 8,000 square feet, the Naturalist Center is larger than most museumscould consider, obviously. But several museums around the world have similar centers that are smaller.I would highly recommend learning more about them at this stage. They shouldn't be the only such education facility at your museum, but should definitely be considered an important component. If I read your address correctly, I'd suggest you talk with my good friend Mary Suter at the museum there: [log in to unmask] She volunteered at the Naturalist Center for a number of years some time ago. If you would like more information about the Naturalist Center please drop me a line, and I'll pop some material in the snail mail. Richard Efthim, Program Director Naturalist Center 741 Miller Drive, SE, Suite G-2 Leesburg, Virginia 20175 (800)729-7725