IMLS awards Museums for America grants to 27 ASTC members

The U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has announced the recipients of its Museums for America program for fiscal year 2024. Twenty-seven ASTC members are among 115 museums who will share $23.3 million in funding.

Museums for America is IMLS’ largest grant funding opportunity for museums and supports a wide range of projects, including exhibitions, educational programs, digital learning, professional development, community engagement, research, collections, and more. The program saw in increase in applications this year, including in relation to America250, the celebration of the U.S. Semiquincentennial in 2025.

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University will pilot a new approach to informal learning, the Urban Nature Lab, which addresses barriers to science education in Philadelphia schools. The lab will function as a physical learning, exhibit, and exploratory space with a focus on urban ecology. Its initial module will consist of a museum exhibition and classroom curriculum development project, designed by an interdisciplinary team of educators, scientists, exhibition developers, and curricula designers. For the pilot, the academy will collaborate with Russell Byers Charter School to test exhibition prototypes and a curriculum that aligns with Pennsylvania state science standards for future implementation in all Philadelphia public schools. The project will bolster science education and experiential learning for third, fourth, and fifth graders through in-classroom and museum lessons, and visits to natural settings within and outside of the city. 

The American Museum of Natural History will improve the care and access of their collections of African and Asian elephant skulls, and African bovid specimens. Project activities will include unifying bovid specimens that are in offsite storage with the specimens in compact storage at the museum’s new Gilder Center; as well as cleaning, rehousing, digitizing, and moving elephant skulls to offsite storage where post-crania are kept. Two part-time conservation interns will provide support to the museum team by carrying out critical cleaning, stabilization, and documentation tasks on the skulls. Museum staff and researchers will experience increased access to frequently used specimens, and the objects will benefit from reduced exposure to key agents of deterioration.

The Cable Natural History Museum will help residents and visitors of northern Wisconsin to understand the special place where they live and play through designing and installing an exhibition about the Northwoods. Museum staff will engage with an Indigenous consultant, a professional videographer, regional experts, and volunteers from the local community to address feedback from guests desiring to understand the full Northwoods natural history story in a way that centers Indigenous knowledge and experiences. The project will include creating an annual Northwoods exhibit in the museum’s exhibit hall, a permanent exhibit installed in the outdoor classroom, a video available to all local schools, businesses, and organizations, and an online exhibit. These components will further the museum’s mission to connect people to Northwoods nature.

California Academy of Sciences will establish a new youth environmental action hub to engage youth ages 14-18 in community-based environmental civic discourse and action. Project staff will create a Leadership Design Council composed of 14 teen participants to collaboratively design, plan, and implement program activities like community workshops, public events, community service opportunities, and mentorship. The museum will hire an education coordinator to coordinate program logistics and operations as well as an external evaluator to measure project results, which will be shared by staff at a professional conference. Through this co-creative engagement, the Academy will build relationships with youth and empower them to see themselves as drivers of environmental change. 

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis will update the permanent exhibition, Carousel Wishes and Dreams, to address a growing gap in imaginative playtime for children while providing an immersive environment for self-directed play and exploration with enhanced accessibility. The project team will consult with a specialist carousel conservator to develop a condition and treatment history of the carousel and make recommendations for its preservation. Exhibition planning and design will be led by the museum’s cross-departmental team while the carousel undergoes preservation and repairs. Museum staff who specialize in the creation of immersive 3D environments will produce and fabricate the exhibition once conservation is complete. As a result, the museum will offer a long-lasting immersive exhibition for visitors of all ages and abilities to play, explore, and discover. 

The Discovery Museum will build a new, permanent exhibit that invites young children to explore the inner workings of a solar cell, a device that converts sunlight into electrical energy. Drawing upon children’s curiosity and imagination, the exhibit will inspire visitors to “be” the sun as they playfully work to induce an “electric current.” This experience will also connect to the museum’s own working solar array, composed of tens of thousands of solar cells that generate enough electricity to power the museum. Museum staff will also design a series of facilitated activities including public programs, interactive experiences for school groups, and a resource guide. As a result, visitors and young learners will expand their understanding of renewable energy sources and learn from action-oriented experiences about mitigating the impacts of climate change.

The DoSeum will create a traveling version of its current exhibition, “Uniquely Us: Understanding Race and Building Unity.” Developed for audiences ages 0-7, the exhibition will provide age-appropriate resources on race and racism. Informed by community conversations, the traveling exhibition will feature experiential and cross-disciplinary learning-through-play experiences. Museum staff will receive training to facilitate the exhibition and develop an exhibit guide for use by future host museums of the traveling exhibition. The accompanying exhibition website will include ancillary resources, including books, articles, and information on local community partners for caregivers.

Explora will provide a Health Careers Pathways program via its X Studio teen workforce development center, in partnership with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Future Focused Education; and Health Leadership High School. Informed by community listening sessions and focus groups and guided by an advisory group of local STEM-H professionals, project staff will develop and facilitate health-related out-of-school time learning experiences including hands-on workshops, teen science cafes, and a statewide health career fair. Program partners will connect teens with diverse healthcare professionals, who will provide mentorship and share career pathway stories and will create a visual organizer of the health career ecosystem, with the goal of increasing awareness and participation in healthcare careers for Hispanic and Indigenous teens in New Mexico. An external evaluator will be hired to measure program performance and results will be shared at professional conferences for the benefit of science museum professionals, educators, and students. 

ExplorationWorks, in collaboration with Head Start and the Lewis and Clark Public Library, will expand its early childhood programs to better support the needs of low-income and rural families and childcare providers in the Helena region. The museum will provide training for local Head Start educators, who will then offer weekly STEM lessons in their classrooms using kits developed by the project team. The museum will implement weekly family STEM programs at the Lewis and Clark Public Library. The museum will also develop and host parent and caregiver workshops on child development and STEM learning, with participants receiving a “Science at Home” activity book and supplemental kit developed by the project team. As a result of this project, over 9,500 young children will experience STEM in their classroom, home, libraries, and through museum visits including a free Family Science Night.

The Exploratorium will develop museum exhibits designed to support artificial intelligence (AI) literacy among young female-identifying audiences (aged 8-18). Using the Exploratorium’s established Exhibit Design for Girls Engagement principles, the exhibits will promote AI awareness and knowledge through inquiry-based content. Museum staff will work with contractors to design and fabricate the exhibits as well as conduct external project evaluation. As a result of the project, staff will present their project findings at a professional conference and distribute a practitioner’s guide documenting the exhibit development process, discussing the evaluation of built exhibits, and reflecting on potential takeaways for building effective AI literacy exhibits.

The Henry Ford will clean, rehouse, and create digital catalog records for over 300 artifacts relating to energy, mobility, communications and information technology. The project will address issues of overcrowding, dirt, mold, and associated artifact deterioration in the storage area, while fostering both physical and virtual access to essential collections items. Museum staff will clean the artifacts and remediate mold as needed, update catalog records, and assess which objects are most at risk of deterioration. About 100 prioritized objects will be stabilized, receive additional conservation treatment, photographed, and added to museum’s digital collections. The museum and the staff will benefit from having greater access to the objects in the collection through the creation of catalog records and digital images that will be available widely through the online collection portal.

The Intrepid Museum will create accessible and interactive exhibits within seven compartments in Intrepid’s medical facility, known as sick bay. The exhibits will blend storytelling with multisensory elements and advanced augmented reality (AR) experiences and engage visitors with the experiences of medical personnel and their patients. The cross-departmental museum team will partner with the NYU Ability Project, experts in creating accessible environments through assistive technology and adaptive design for people with disabilities. The project team will also engage with a media group that combines producers and AR technology experts. Throughout the project, Disability Advisory Group, self-advocates with a range of lived experience and expertise, will provide continuous feedback on each exhibit element. This project will address an ongoing and documented interest from visitors of all ages and geographic regions in accessing more of the ship’s historic areas, of which only 44% are currently open to the public.

Madison Children’s Museum will engage in external community engagement efforts and internal capacity-building activities as part of its long-range strategic planning and site evaluation process. A strategic planning consultant will oversee the planning process, and staff will work with volunteers in listening sessions and focus groups to create a responsive strategic plan. The museum will also partner with the University of Wisconsin Department of Curriculum and Instruction to work with a student research fellow who will assist in increasing the museum’s research and evaluation capacities. As a result of the project, the museum will be better able to fulfill community needs through community-informed exhibits, programs, and educational experiences.

The Marbles Kids Museum will design and install an immersive exhibit focused on engaging in career exploration through hands-on play. The 3,000-square-foot space will offer activities and displays that reflect industries that are expanding in North Carolina and rely on a diverse and capable future workforce, such as biotechnology, construction, manufacturing, and transportation. Project activities will include assembling a career exploration community of practice with staff from other science and children’s museums, prototyping activities and exhibit components, developing the design, as well as fabricating and installing the components. As a result, the museum will contribute to local and regional workforce development efforts through hands-on, imaginative play experiences, and share their findings and best practices for career exploration play in a children’s museum setting.

The Museum of Discovery and Science will strengthen the scope and impact of two paid workforce development internship programs for South Florida high school students grades 10–12: Everglades EcoExplorers and the Aviation Academy. The internships will provide students with education and training, field experiences and excursions to aviation facilities, networking with college faculty and industry professionals, and part-time paid employment as museum educators. Staff will pursue certification as a Florida Ready to Work credentialed program and will work with collegiate partners and industry professionals in environmental sustainability and aviation to provide mentorship opportunities. As a result of the project, students from underserved communities will gain increased Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) knowledge and experience, and develop pathways to STEM collegiate education and careers.

The Museum of the Earth will expand access to the collection of Cenozoic corals from the Western Atlantic by digitizing specimens and sharing data through online portals and educational resources. Project activities will include photographing 200 specimens and creating 50 illustrated species pages that will be published on the museum’s free, web-based educational portal. The museum will hire a collections assistant and train them in all aspects of specimen digitization and curation. A team of interns and volunteers will be trained to associate labels to specimens, enter information for the specimens in the collections database, and re-box items. This project will enhance the collection’s long-term preservation and accessibility for scientists, students, and the public to understand how coral reefs, which are one of the ocean’s most threatened habitats, respond to environmental stresses.

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry will update the museum’s labs to improve the educational spaces for youth educational programming. For the project, the museum will partner with Project LEDO, a Portland-based community organization that promotes equity in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM). To inform the project, staff will host family advisory workshops, in which participants will develop prototypes for new lab experience strategies. Building on work completed for a previous IMLS award, this project will revise the museum’s Culturally Relevant Experiences Toolkit to equip museum staff to develop and facilitate learning that centers underrepresented voices in STEAM. Staff will receive professional development training in leading hands-on STEAM activities and will share project learnings and results at an annual educator summit.

The Orlando Science Center will expand its public information and science literacy campaign, Science Matters, by focusing on critical thinking to make informed decisions, including evaluating evidence and data related to science topics.  Project activities will include updating the Science Matters resource webpage, prototyping and implementing pop-up activities on the exhibit floor, and developing a live demonstration show. Museum staff will also build on relationships with community partners, including Orange County Library Services, to develop an age-appropriate reading list for young visitors and their caregivers, and listener-supported radio and county television stations to make programming accessible to a broader audience. As a result, visitors online and in-person will have trusted resources for information and access to activities that demonstrate how the scientific method can help people better understand the impact of science on the major issues of the day.

The Rochester Museum & Science Center will partner with the Ganondagan State Historic Site and the Friends of Ganondagan to offer programming related to the opening of the museum’s Hodinöšyö:nih (Haudenosaunee) Continuity, Innovation, and Resilience exhibit. Curated by a Seneca Knowledge Keeper, and informed by Haudenosaunee community member feedback, the exhibit will explore themes of Haudenosaunee cultural continuity and change, identity, and sovereignty through featured artists and artworks. A series of educational programs featuring traditional Haudenosaunee artistry through artist demonstrations, workshops, and cultural festivals will be planned and carried out. Project staff will provide professional development for staff, docents, and volunteers across the organizations to increase cultural knowledge and awareness about partner collections and resources. In addition to hosting field trips, staff will share online associated lesson plans and educational videos for the benefit of teachers, students, and Haudenosaunee audiences.

The San Diego Natural History Museum will continue work to revitalize its unique, but underutilized and imperiled marine invertebrates collection by improving the accessibility and integrity of its fluid-preserved collection of crustaceans, annelids and soft-bodied mollusks. A full-time entomology project manager will be hired to lead a team of volunteers through the project activities of collating and digitizing the various specimen catalogs into a central database for online collection access; inventorying the collection; and performing metadata-guided collection rehousing and reorganization. Upon completion of the project, the museum will have an accurate online database available for researchers, and the specimens will be safely housed in climate-controlled storage.

The Science Center of Iowa will create new institutional standards for bilingual labels, graphics, and engagement. Working in collaboration with a Latino/a Advisory Committee and with the help of paid interns, the project team will create new style guide that outlines inclusive language and interpretation for exhibit signage and communication tools.  The center will hire an exhibit coordinator to participate in research and development of the style guide for use in writing, editing, and graphic design of exhibit labels to accommodate bilingual text. Staff will also receive cultural awareness training and engage in outreach to local Hispanic communities. 

The Science Museum of Minnesota will digitize a collection of over 8,000 fossils from the Wannagan Creek site in North Dakota. The 60-million-year-old fossils document a broad range of life from the ancient ecosystem, from fungus to primates. Building on a previous IMLS-funded project, the museum will photograph, rehouse, and create digital catalog records for the fossil collection. The project will support a temporary full-time paleontology collections assistant, who will perform the majority of the digitization. To enhance the accessibility of the collection by the scientific community and the public, the museum will make the digital records available on iDigBio and GBIF, two free open-access databases for biological collections. In addition, the museum will host outreach events, create numerous social media posts, and develop a new educational kit to share the collection publicly and create opportunities for future research. 

The Sciencenter will partner with regional libraries to expand equitable access to hands-on STEM learning by leveraging and supporting public libraries as trusted spaces that offer relevant and engaging experiences. The project team will use input from prior library collaborations and listening sessions to co-create STEM activity kits and establish a learning community with library educators to support locally relevant STEM learning opportunities that address regional challenges. Project activities will include prototyping activities with museum and library visitors, disseminating kits for at-home and library learning, and a developmental evaluation. As a result, the museum will strengthen partnerships to reach new audiences with a focus on rural communities and libraries; regional libraries and families will increase their capacity to facilitate STEM learning; and children will improve science process skills through increased STEM learning and engagement.

The University of Montana spectrUM Discovery Area will collaborate with local community groups to redesign their space and programs and offer more culturally inclusive science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) education opportunities for Missoula’s immigrant and refugee populations. Museum staff and community partners will host listening sessions that will inform the program development. Project activities will include piloting activities, translating materials, creating an informational video explaining public transportation, and refining summer and childcare programs. As a result, museum staff will explore cross-cultural, collaborative approaches to STEAM and role-model engagement by weaving immigrant and refugee cultural identities throughout the museum’s exhibits and programs.

The Springfield Science Museum will create a new permanent exhibit about Archosaurs, the animal group from which dinosaurs evolved, and the prehistoric history of the local region. Museum staff will contract with an exhibit designer and fabricator to produce an exhibition with hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning experiences and text in both English and Spanish. The exhibit will include objects from the museum’s permanent collection to further contextualize evolutionary subject matter. Beneficiaries of the project will include students and school groups as well as visitors engaging in informal science learning.

The Tech Interactive, a hands-on science center, will create educational resources that empower youth from historically marginalized communities to envision themselves in STEM careers. Informed by pre-project research and community listening sessions, the center’s STEM Pathways Committee will select two to three program ideas to test, including STEM events, project-based mentoring models, and career exploration resources for educational programs. The Committee includes educators from local schools, as well as the Santa Clara County Office of Education, San Jose Public Library, Envisioneers (a youth mentoring organization), and STEM education nonprofits. To support co-creation of resources, the center will train paid college interns with lived experience similar to the target demographic to offer insights and authentically engage youth as near peers. Multiple focus groups will provide feedback used to refine the programs under development and ensure successful integration of career-connected resources into existing programming.

The Witte Museum will improve care of 50,000 artifacts from the Texas History Collection through cataloging, rehousing and enhancing collections management. This project builds on a recently completed concept plan for a new interpretive strategy that will reveal the history of Texas through individual, familial, and generational stories ensuring that all visitors see themselves represented in the history galleries. Project activities will include purchasing a metal shelving system, and training volunteers to process artifacts, update catalog records, and rehouse the objects in the new storage equipment. Objects that will be rehoused include furniture, ceramics, glassware, decorative arts, food tins and commercial products, fashion accessories, musical instruments, tools for various forms of labor, and entertainment artifacts. As a result, museum staff will be better able to plan exhibitions and rotate a wider variety of artifacts which will increase the number of stories that can be shared in the galleries and updated as new scholarship emerges.

The Notice of Funding Opportunity for the FY 2025 cycle is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

Additional Information:

• “IMLS Awards Over $23M in Grant Funding through Museums for America Program,” August 8, 2024.