Hi, I'm Becky!

Hello, I’m Becky Gall, one of the Greenhouse Education Interns here at the Museum. During the fall and spring, I’m a student at the University of Maine, Orono, studying Human Nutrition and Dietetics. I’m lucky to be part of such a great team this summer, working outside sharing what I know about nutrition and gardening with you and your children. I’m writing to give you an insider’s perspective of what’s happening inside and outside of the Greenhouse (located in the Shipyard).

Currently, Corrine (the other Greenhouse Intern) and I have been keeping ourselves busy by maintaining, harvesting, planting, and composting. If you have visited the Greenhouse recently, you may have had the chance to taste some of our ripe strawberries, touch the pea pods, and design your own vegetable garden drawing.

Inside of the Greenhouse right now, the cucumber plants are flowering, the melons are flourishing, the peas pods are maturing, the tomato plants and other plants are looking good. Outside of the Greenhouse, the beets are starting to uproot and the broccoli heads are beginning to crown.

Art inspired by our vegetable garden.

This summer, I encourage you and your kids to come explore and ask us questions to get a better understanding of food. Corrine and I look forward to meeting you as we venture through the lifecycle of fruits, vegetables, spices, and herbs. I hope that you will participate in many of the Museum’s Greenhouse activities.

Janet's book will be available June 6.

As my friends and family can attest, I’m a bit nuts about museums. Day trips and vacations are never complete without discovering a new museum or two. One of the things I love about working in public relations here at the Museum & Theatre is giving tours – when I guide someone through our exhibits, I find that I get to rediscover it for myself, too! Over a year ago, I met writer Janet Mendelsohn, who was working on a book about museums in Maine. Janet had visited us before to write this neat article for the Boston Globe about our Camera Obscura, but this was the first time she explored the Museum & Theatre from top to bottom, asking insightful questions and observing our visitors at play. She went on to do that with dozens of other museums and has now published the resulting book, Maine Museums: Art, Oddities & Artifacts. I wanted to learn more about her journey through Maine and get tips on which museums to hit on my next day trip, so I asked Janet to share some of her findings with us.

Lucy:   What made you decide to write about museums in Maine?

Janet:  When I travel, I visit museums—Boston, New York, Paris, Madrid,

Janet Mendelsohn (photo by Stu Rosner)

 Atlanta, Washington. While obviously there are great collections in all those cities, my favorites are in Maine. People here feel and express a more powerful connection to both this place and the past. The stories they choose to tell through fine and folk art, history and memorabilia, from logging equipment to scrimshaw, is the story of Maine and the nation and it’s most often told on a personal level. In local history museums, we hear from mill girls and women struggling to hold on to their homes when their young husbands went off to fight in the Civil War. Here at the Children’s Museum, kids can ‘try on’ what it’s like to be a farmer or to work on cars. Moreover, Maine’s museum directors, curators, staff and volunteers are excited about what they do. They’re happy to answer questions, even if you don’t have a reporter’s notebook in your hand. It was a fun project.    

Lucy: For many people, being a travel writer sounds like a dream job! How did you find success in this field? 

Janet:  I wish I could say I’m one of those lucky journalists who get to travel the globe and someone else picks up the bill. I’m not. But as a freelancer, when I travel I can often interest an editor in a related story and get paid for writing it, which is what I love to do most. My first freelance piece about Maine, about 12 years ago, was for Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, a wonderful magazine. I had gone to the Isles of Shoals, off Kittery and Portsmouth, to visit the recreation of Celia Thaxter’s Island Garden. It’s so remote and simple but magical, with old fashioned flowers like those she described in her book. I tried to capture that sense of distance, real and historical. I guess it worked because I’ve been writing for Maine Boats ever since.

Lucy: Clearly you have a love for museums (and, given my occupation, so do I!). What do you say to someone who thinks that museums are old-fashioned or stuffy? How would you convince the contemporary consumer of the relevance of museums in our current, high-speed culture?

Janet: Another reason I wrote the book is to help kids and adults discover

Nowetah's American Indian Museum in New Portland displays Native American arts and crafts of all the Americas. Photo by Janet Mendelsohn.

 that museums today are fun. In this economy, they can’t survive if they don’t get creative about using new technology, installing multimedia exhibits, and planning events that engage people (including parents!) with shorter attention spans. We’re all so attached to our cell phones. Video games keep setting the bar higher for visual effects. Plus many of us have less money to spend on travel and entertainment, so it had better be worthwhile if they’re going to get us in the door. Museums in Maine are now lending visitors iPads and installing high tech kiosks to enhance what we see and do in the galleries. Many have terrific summer and vacation week programs for children and adults, special events like logging competitions and military reenactments. As for relevance?  Until you see a great painting or the craftsmanship of a Native American basket up close, you can’t appreciate its beauty. Until you’re face-to-face with textile looms, whaling gear or ice harvesting tools, you can’t appreciate what those jobs were like.   

Lucy: The “oddities” part of the title makes me very curious! What did you discover on your journey through Maine that was most surprising – your “oddest oddity,” shall we say?

Janet:  I’d have to say the Umbrella Cover Museum on Peaks Island, although the Bigfoot specimens at the International Cryptozoology Museum are right up there. But they’re not the only ones. [Note: the Criptozoology Museum is just a few blocks west of us on Congress Street! -Lucy]

Would-be sea captains and sailors find plenty of hands-on activities at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. Photo courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum.

Lucy: Are there any hidden gems for families – spots parents could take children that seem to be under the radar?

Janet:  Maine Maritime Museums in Bath has a one-weekend family boatbuilding workshop, a pirate ship to climb all over and lighthouse and nature cruises on the Kennebec. Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport has a hands-on marine science lab and the “Peapod” where kids can dress up in 19^th century clothing, play with ships models and learn to tie knots. The Wendell Gilley Museum of wood carving, on Mount Desert Island, has art, natural history and wildlife protection programs, including carving lessons for ages 11 and up.  

Lucy: Which destination was your personal favorite? Was there one place you connected with more than any other?

Janet: You want me to choose? The Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Art Museum are national caliber, the Colby and Bowdoin college art collections probably are, too. The Saco Museum brought history alive for me with its personal stories. The Osher Map Library collection is full of exquisite rare art that served a practical purpose. Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village was especially interesting. It’s the only active Shaker community left in the world. I could go on and on.

Lucy: Are you already thinking about your next writing adventure? What topic would you like to explore next?

Janet:  I recently visited Louisa May Alcott’s home, Orchard House, where she wrote Little Women. I keep thinking about how I felt standing beside the little desk in her bedroom where she wrote the book. It’s telling me something but I’m not yet sure what.

Want to win a signed copy of Janet’s book? Visit our Facebook page and keep an eye out for the question we post on June 7. Answer it and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a signed copy of Maine Museums: Art, Oddities & Artifacts (Countryman Press).

Emma as Bella and Gabe Walker as the prince in Beauty and the Beast.

Emma Cooper is an actor who first appeared on the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine stage last fall as Bella in Beauty and the Beast. In the past year, she’s spent countless hours here rehearsing and performing with friends and peers under the guidance of our Theatre Artistic Director, Reba Short. Emma wrote this essay for a school assignment this spring and shared it with Reba and the actors in the Youth Voices on Stage project (learn more about it here or here). Reba was very moved and shared it with me, and I wanted to share it with you – Emma writes so eloquently of the very special experience our actors have here. If you or someone you know would like to have an experience like Emma’s, we have an audition workshop this week and auditions for Little Red Riding Hood next Wednesday, June 8.

Emma writes:

When you’re a child magic is everywhere. Things become what they aren’t. A boulder becomes a fortress for a fairy army, a bumble bee a fairy prince’s noble steed. Mermaids frolic in the frothy waves at the beach and terrible monsters lurk in woods. Anything is possible. You can fly, become invisible and even become a cat. It all happens. Then, a strange phenomenon called “growing up” occurs. 

Boulders begin to look like really big rocks. Bumble bees become foul pests who sting. The waves don’t seem that imposing and the mermaids are really just loose pieces of seaweed. Flying, it happens, but it’s expensive. Where does all the magic go? We become cynical and hardened. We don’t stop to smell the flowers and to marvel at the beautiful world we live in. Everything has to be fast, grown-up, scientific and chic. 

Reba (standing, left) with members of the cast of The Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings.

I get tired of this. This fast moving society we live in. I want to stop and smell the flowers, to marvel at a rock, see the good in a bumble bee! But it’s hard to unravel yourself. To get off of Faceook and sit outside, to stop thinking about your future and be awed by the present. 

I’ve found someone who helps me do this, a grown-up none the less. Her name is Reba Short and she is the director of the Children’s Theater of Maine. When I heard about acting in your shows, I was thrilled. It’s hard to find theaters that do straight shows, non-musicals, for teens in Maine. I remember thinking “I’m so excited; this will look great on college applications! And, I’m getting experience for an acting career!” That IS true and it’s one of the perks of the theater. But when I participated in my first show, Beauty and the Beast, I realized that that wasn’t what I valued the most. I began to marvel again. That childlike wonder came back. I found myself questioning if an angsty prince-turned-Beast really DID live in the woods. Were those mermaids I saw smiling at me? Wait, are those troll tracks?! Smell these flowers! That was the most rewarding thing you could have ever given me Reba.

I remember one time in Beauty and the Beast. Gabe was having a hard time doing the characterization during a scene. You decided that we had to sing our lines out to each other. The combination was one of Phantom of the Opera meets Beauty and the Beast meets a couple of bad singers. It was one of the most outrageous things I’ve ever done and I thank you for it!

Emma at East End Community School leading a group discussion as part of the Youth Voices Onstage project.

In the Youth Voices project that we’ve been doing it’s such a pleasure to work with you. I know that you’ve taught us all to question our actions. When we go into schools the little kids adore you. They hang on to your every word, mesmerized. I know you’re probably going to say that you’re the one that is supposed to be thanking us, because we’re really the people who do the acting. You’re wrong. Without you this project would have not been possible. You’ve not only helped these little kids to do acts of kindness, you’ve helped us. You’ve made it so that we could all heal from wounds that were inflicted upon us by mean things people have done or said. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that working with you on this has been such a pleasure and honor.

We are so blessed to have you in our lives. You’ve taught us to see the fortress in a boulder, the smiling mermaids in the waves, to stop and smell the flowers. To cherish life and everything in it. To slow down and be awed. To find magic in the world. And most important of all to imagine and hope.

Do you know the Dr. Seuss book Oh the Places You’ll Go? It’s a story many graduating high school students know well, whether they have read the book or not: the struggle to reach goals and go far in life. Sometimes, those long travels start with a step, sometimes with unsure footing. For example, I can clearly remember my college application process during my senior year of high school. I thought I was going to drown underneath the waves of papers that were consuming my desk, my bed, my bedroom floor, and also (much to my parents’ dismay) the living room coffee table.  I was completely overwhelmed. Without a guide, the college admissions process can be a confusing and convoluted path for many high school students. I can’t even tell you the things I would have given for someone to tell me exactly what a college admissions representative would be looking for in my application, or even just to answer the one, big question: which college do I choose?

This week in the Youth Imagine Project, our volunteers received a special visit from Meredith Gadd, an admissions representative from the University of New England. She talked with the students about the things they should consider when choosing a school, so that they would find the best fit. She discussed the growing trend of students getting their two year degree at a local community college before getting into a Bachelor’s program at a four year university. She also talked to students about admissions requirements, such as SAT scores and grades. Meredith then took questions from the students, many of whom plan on furthering their education in nursing programs at local universities and technical schools.

Perhaps what I’m trying to say is that there is a fine print to Dr. Seuss’s message. Yes, you can go very far. It will be hard, and you can work through it, but sometimes a little help goes a long way.  Contrary to the words of the late, great Dr. Seuss, we are not all alone in our journey for greatness. We were very thankful to have Meredith’s help this Tuesday, and she did a wonderful job! Our volunteers found her information very useful, especially as many of them are juniors and will be starting the college application process in the fall!

This week during the Youth Imagine Project, a few students picked dates for their projects or for personal meetings to discuss their projects further. We also focused some more attention on job applications, and a few of our students even applied for the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine’s Youth Ranger position! As our students begin preparing for summer, many of them have more and more questions regarding college as many of them will start the college application process when they return to school in the fall. To help our Youth Imagine volunteers, we have reached out to our friends at the University of New England, who will be sending an admissions official to discuss the application process with our students. More updates on that later!

This week, Jamie and I are also starting work on making the Youth Imagine Project a sustainable program. Thus, these next few weeks are going to dedicated to creating policies and procedures for future Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine staff. It’s a great time for Jamie and I to sit down and think about what worked about the Youth Imagine Project, and what still needs to be changed a little bit. We’ll be covering everything from recruiting and applications to the actual workshops volunteers participated in. We can’t wait to go over every detail!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks! It’s SAT weekend for high school juniors (good luck to all you wonderful high schoolers who are taking them!) and it’s finals week at USM. Needless to say, both the Youth Imagine volunteers and I have been extremely busy!  Despite our hectic schedules, we had a successful meeting at Portland High School this week. Here are some things are wonderful Youth Imagine volunteers are doing:

• Elfriede is about to start work on her painting. It will detail all of the different vegetables and fruits in our greenhouse. Isn’t that awesome?
• Munira and Hindia are going to work together to do a theatre/storytime program about bullying and culture – more updates later on!
• Samia is going to help out with some tea programs that we have at the Museum. She knows how to make Sudanese and Egyptian tea. Make sure to come in this summer when she is doing these tasty programs!
• Alias is going to help in the putting together of our new greenhouse.
• Suzan wants to do a language program about Arabic. We are thinking she might write a visitor’s name on a piece of paper for them in Arabic, which they can then decorate.

This last week the Youth Imagine volunteers have been participating in a professional development workshop about job applications and resumes. It’s the time of the year when high school students are looking for part-time and summer employment. Do you remember what it was like to get your first job? Wasn’t it exciting? Sometimes the process of finding a good job in high school can be confusing. How can you tell what an employer is looking for? How can you market yourself when you don’t have any job experience? These are some questions we tried to answer on Tuesday.  We cruised around some online job listings, and discussed what types of jobs were appropriate for high school students, and what types of companies hire seasonal employment. Next week, we will be focusing on resume writing. Some of our kids have already gotten a head start on their resumes, which is awesome! We hope that these types of workshops will help our kids enter the job market. It’s a tough thing to get started in for a lot of high school students! 

I also hope that next week we can start picking dates for our students to come in and do their programs with our visitors, or work on the projects that will be displayed in the Museum. I can’t wait to see how all of their projects turn out!

Last week Jamie and I sat down and really discussed how we can make the Youth Imagine Project more accessible and convenient for both us, the administrators of the project, and for our students. We also wondered how we could streamline the drafting process of student projects, and make it more structured.  So, two lattes and a lunch break later, Jamie and I feel we have come up with a few new adjustments that will make this project even better for both students and the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine!

1)      Location, Location, Location

We have found one of the biggest troubles we are having with this project is the location. While the Children’s Museum & Theatre is awesome for playtime, there is very little space for a group of 10-12 teenagers and two adults to sit down and actually discuss new ideas. Thus, we are hoping to move our meetings to Portland High School. The Program will still run at the same time, but it will be easier for our students because they will only have to walk down the hall to meet with us, instead of having to walk a few blocks. Also, PHS has a lot more space for us to meet in!

2)      Structure

We’ve found that the actual projects that the students are creating need a little more structure than we had initially planned. While our students are brilliant, they need a little more guidance than a blank page. We are now hoping to structure their projects around cultural programs that can be done with visitors at the Museum. So many of our students have expressed interest in sharing their culture with others that we feel this will be a good fit for both the students and for us, as we are trying to create more culture focused programs.

This has been a learning process for sure, but we are so glad that our students have been patient with us and are so brilliant! They always bring something new and awesome to the program to share with us, and we hope that these changes will benefit them! Stay tuned for new updates next week!

An aspect of the Youth Imagine Project is giving students professional skills that will help them achieve success, no matter what path they may choose to take in life. This Tuesday, Rahma and I drafted a rough draft of a lesson plan for her Where Does Your Food Come From? program. A lesson plan details the objective of your program, the materials needed and the script for the program that tells the reader things that they can say and do with the visitors. Basically, a lesson plan is a description of your project that can be used by others who want to do your program themselves.

Lesson plans are usually used by educators, and some of the things you learn by writing one, such as the format and content needed, are specific to the task.  However, some of the skills that come with learning how to write one can be used in almost any discipline. Writing a lesson plan means learning how to write clearly and concisely, which is valued in any discipline that requires communication.  Writing clearly is one of those things that appear easy, but once you start doing it you learn it is harder than it sounds. Clear writing includes correct spelling, grammar, and appropriate vocabulary. Can you think of a time someone didn’t communicate clearly? Wasn’t it confusing?

Next week, Rahma and I will work together to edit her lesson plan so that it is as clear as possible. In general, writing is a process, and creating a lesson plan is no different. Check in next week for more exciting updates!

Rahma and I get our hands dirty preparing soil blocks.

It seems like everywhere we look, someone new wants to help with our new greenhouse! Alias, one of our Youth Imagine volunteers, has decided that he wants to help with the construction of the greenhouse – from helping plant the seedlings to constructing the raised beds that they will be planted in. On Tuesday, Alias, Rahma, Jamie and I made soil blocks to plant the seeds in. These small soil blocks will be placed in larger ones once they have grown a bit, and then will eventually be moved into the greenhouse. We are just waiting until it gets a little bit warmer! We had a lot of fun getting our hands dirty!

Last Wednesday, Rahma was able to do her education program with our visitors! She taught them about the different parts of a plant. She used a carrot and a strawberry as examples, and while she was teaching them, the kids got to snack on baby carrots! Yum! Rahma was very excited about how well her program went, and remarked that all of the kids were so smart! Both Rahma and Alias have stated that they would like to continue volunteering with us after their Youth Imagine Project term is over. We are very excited to add them to our list of volunteers! Stay tuned for more news next week!

This Thursday I got the chance to meet with Elfriede, one of the Youth Imagine students I have mentioned in prior blogs. She brought in a sketch of the painting she is going to make for us, which details the different types of plants that you can find in our brand new greenhouse! It looked really awesome, and we are working out the details as to how large it can be, as well as what painting supplies we would be able to give her. Soon, she will be coming in to work on it, and it will turn from a pencil sketch to a permanent piece of artwork.

Like Elfriede’s plans for her painting, the Youth Imagine Project is still in the sketching stage. It’s a pilot program, which means certain plans will have to be erased and replaced with more manageable and relevant ideas. This does not mean that the project is doing poorly. On the contrary, alterations are merely an indication that this program could become permanent once it is perfected. Much the same as any piece of art, perfection takes a lot of eraser marks. I guess what I am trying to say is that you don’t fix something just to throw it out! You want to keep it around!

The biggest change we have made to the Youth Imagine Project over the past few weeks is the scheduling. We’ve found that our students have taken on a great amount of responsibility, and have many interests that manifest in other settings than the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine. For example, many of our students are participating in Portland High School’s International Show.  While this is a very exciting opportunity for our students to share their culture with the community, their practices were at the same time as the Youth Imagine Project! We are flexible though, and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to change how we structure the meetings with our students. We’ve found that one-on-one time is most beneficial for both the students and the people who are working with them. This is hard to do when you have 10-12 amazing students in one room. We’ve decided to change the scheduling of the program from one 2 hour group session, to multiple small group or individual meetings that are scheduled in different time slots during the week. We hope that this will make our program more convenient for our busy students, but if not, we will just alter it one more time!

We can’t wait until this volunteer program is perfected, but until then, we will slave over the sketches and make changes until our figurative erasers are merely nubs that we hold between our nails as we scratch the paper trying to make a change. We want to make sure that this program is a perfect fit for the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine, but also a perfect fit for the youth that participate in it. Stay tuned for next week for new and exciting updates!