Participatory Museum Workshops

The Participatory Museum Workshops were implemented by the Science and Technology Museum in collaboration with Ms. Maria Kostourou, Kindergarten Teacher-Museologist, a graduate student of the Open University of Cyprus in the context of her dissertation.

Title of event: Creation of educational material for autonomous exploration of the STM by school groups of children 4-6 years old. Four Workshops with a total duration of 10 hours were implemented.

The objectives of the event were:

A) For the STM:

- To strengthen the participatory profile of the museum through collaboration with students.

- To utilize the dynamics of the collaborative model in the approach and the active participation of the public.

- To develop educational material that will strengthen the autonomy of specific school groups.

B) For the participants:

- To get to know the STM through the prism of co-shaping educational material.

- To gain a learning and communication experience in the context of the educational function of the museum.

Participants: volunteer students at the Science and Technology Museum and students from the Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education. The Laboratories included:

• Introductory games and team-building games.
• Short presentation of the museum.
• The groups "met" the exhibits. Each group selected an exhibit from the permanent exhibition "Telecommunications in our lives", which was the subject of the workshops. Then, the members of the group presented the exhibit to the other groups (using speech, sound, movement, etc.) and documented their proposals for the production of educational material on poster size paper.
• Presentation of a participatory museum’s philosophy and selected educational activities related to the participatory dimension of the STM.
• Presentation of museum-educational activities planning issues.
• Each group dealt with the subject of choice of the other two groups.
• Each group created an educational poster for the exhibit they have chosen.
• The groups discussed in relation to the produced result of the three posters.
• Simulation of a school visit with the participants in the role of children 4-6 years old and a kindergarten teacher.
• Evaluation.