Museum visits can be educational and a fun day out of the classroom for students. But the cost of transportation may discourage schools from planning too many trips.
One Mount Pleasant community member has devised a solution. He’s reimbursing schools across Michigan the cost of bussing their students to a local museum.
Jay Martin is the Director of the Museum of Cultural and Natural History at Central Michigan University.
“So for the year of our 125th anniversary local-regional schools can all send their students here. They just need to make a reservation to come and visit us. So he did this last year and we had record attendance here at the museum”.
Martin said the free-museum program has been popular and the museum is planning unique new programs, but he said he couldn't share any specifics just yet.
“Groups that come here can get our standard tours that we’ve always had and educational programs that fit their needs for the Michigan state standards. But at the same time we have these additional things that are going to be interesting and unique using not only our facilities here at the main museum here in Rowe Hall but also our school house”.
Martin said so far this fall they have on average three reservations every week. He said it's popular because not only do K-12 students learn when visiting the museum, CMU students learn by having the opportunity to teach.
“One of the great things about it is not only do students get to come here and learn but our students are actually learning how to do educational programs. So, it helps meet their needs for success like being able to practice delivering and developing new educational programs”.