Show & Tell & Dance at BCM

We’re nearly three weeks into the internships, and we’re moving right along with our Engaging Underserved Populations Project. (Update after first official Working Group Meeting later this month/early July) When I’m not slogging through visitor surveys, past studies, zip codes and census stuff, I have found time to get out and have a great time in the museum.

Last Friday, I stuck around from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m for our $1 admission night, sponsored by Target — which might be the greatest company in the world for allowing people to visit museum around the country for reduced prices. We put on a first-time program of Show & Tell. Our collections manager, Jennifer, and I showed Vietnamese Water Puppets, while two of our Teen Ambassadors brought in items of their own.  The star of the show, however, was Nelson, a five-year-old superbaby, who reads Greek mythology and created a Medusa sculpture to show off. When he got tired, Akemi from the Japanese house exhibit came with wax food to show off. It was pretty sweet.

We had plenty of visitors, and the kids loved wearing the special white gloves in order to gently touch the objects. Unfortunately we didn’t have any parents or children interested in signing up to bring in their own objects for another Show & Tell session. We will be trying again in July, and I will be bringing in the brass crab that all of you have seen probably 12 times by now. Any suggestions on how we can do a better job in welcoming parents and kids to participate in Show & Tell? Check out the pictures on Facebook and become a fan!