Normally, as a college student, I welcome any snow day so that I can forget my academic responsibilities, remain in my pajamas, drink hot cocoa, and just enjoy a day’s worth of relaxation. Not so this winter. As the Community Engagement Intern, I found myself wishing that the snow would stop showing up on Tuesdays so that we could get the Youth Imagine Project up and running.
The Youth Imagine Project is an exciting new program which works with immigrant high school students from Portland High School to develop their own service-learning project within the museum, while simultaneously offering them professional development workshops to help them gain skills for college and the workforce. It’s exciting not only because we are working with a new age bracket of students, but also because…well…these kids are awesome and have so many ideas to share with the Children’s Museum and Theatre staff and visitors!
You can imagine our excitement when the snowstorms stayed at bay, and our group of students was able to show up for a brainstorming session. Our kids came up with so many great ideas (what I sometimes like to call, in the spirit of weather metaphors, “thought drops”)! They are taking so many awesome avenues in their projects, including psychology, technology, tradition & culture, gardening, music, and drama. Many of them expressed interest in running education programs with our visitors, while others are thinking of other ways to use their skills and interests.
We can’t wait until next week when we freeze these thought drops into more solid project ideas! I’ll be writing posts weekly, so stay tuned for further developments!