Penn Museum: Unpacking the Past Educators Take to the Road, Visit Schools In New Mummy Mobiles	Print Issue
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Is that an ancient golden mummy mask on that new Honda?

Yes, it is. And a giant Sphinx. And Egyptian hieroglyphs. When Penn Museum’s Unpacking the Past educators visit Philadelphia schools to prepare students for their upcoming museum trip, they travel in style—in one of two specially designed and wrapped “mummy mobiles,” sporting images of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the collection.

“Learning about cultures of the past should be engaging, draw correlations between ancient and modern-day practices, and, most importantly, be fun,” said Ellen Owens, Merle-Smith Director of the Learning Programs department that runs the Unpacking the Past program. “We hope the arrival of the mummy mobiles incites students’ natural curiosity—who is visiting us? What will they bring to our school? And we don’t mind the publicity for the Museum as our mummy mobiles make their way around Philadelphia’s neighborhoods!”

Unpacking the Past: Year One Report Card

Penn Museum’s Unpacking the Past program employs an inquiry-based approach that invites students to delve deeper into the rich material culture and traditions of ancient Egypt and the ancient Roman Empire. Developed in close collaboration with teachers and curriculum advisors to teach and reinforce the ‘Common Core’ curriculum standards, the free program, which kicked off in the fall of 2014 (Almanac October 28, 2014), is open to all Philadelphia public and Title 1 charter school 7th graders. Beyond developing students’ critical thinking skills, the program trains participants about how to learn within a traditional museum setting, such as how to look closely at objects and read the adjoining texts to learn about them.

The statistics are in from the first year: 4,318 students and 576 teachers and parents participated in the new program, often for multiple experiences (the program features in-museum and outreach components); an additional 467 students, teachers and parents participated in school-based events, such as career days and family nights. Overall, Unpacking the Past reached 5,361 individuals and made nearly 10,000 program “touch points” in the public school community. Students from 183 classrooms in 65 schools participated—more than half of the seventh grade students in the district, including 19 autistic support and life skills support classes.

Along with collecting statistics, the Museum collected teacher feedback, much of it overwhelmingly positive, like this comment from a Mastery Clymer School teacher:

A participating teacher said, “Being a part of the Unpacking the Past program allowed all of my students to participate... In my class, I have students that for years have been labeled special education, intellectually disabled, below grade level readers. However, at the museum, none of those labels mattered and students were allowed to be historians. I had students who cringe when the textbooks come out, but were raising their hands and participating in the Mummy Makers Workshop. I heard students make incredible connections when viewing artifacts and get the “look” when they realized they are smart and they are capable and they have something to offer the community. I would absolutely recommend this experience to other 7th grade classes. Thank you so much!”

Teacher professional development days in 2014-2015 served 71 educators with ancient cultures programs at the Museum, and over the summer of 2015, an additional 107 teachers participated in Museum professional development.

About the Innovative Program

An ambitious, three-year, $2.2 million project, Unpacking the Past is made possible through a generous $1 million lead grant from GRoW Annenberg, a program of the Annenberg Foundation. Over $860,000 in matching funds has been committed to date from donors including Diane v.S. and Robert M. Levy, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Penn Museum Women’s Committee, the National Endowment for the Arts and PECO. Additional matching funds for the educational program continue to be raised.

Teacher professional development training, in-school pre-visits in a “mummy mobile,” interactive museum field trips (gallery tour and workshop experiences), pre/post visit classroom projects, and—for each and every student who attends—one-year family memberships to the Penn Museum, are all part of the program. Everything from teacher training, to transportation to and from the Museum, to online resources for follow up, to the Museum membership that can extend the experience is grant-funded and free to the participants.

Seventh grade teachers in Philadelphia can set up training for themselves and programs for their students by emailing schools@pennmuseum.org or calling the Museum’s Learning Programs Department at (215) 898-4033.