Learning by Doing: How Can Museums Inspire Young People?
Press Release
Date of release: 12 October 2009
YOUNG PEOPLE HELP TO CREATE THE MUSEUM OF THE FUTURE
The UK’s national museums, in association with ippr north, are organising a conference to explore young people’s ideas for a Museum of the Future. The conference, Learning by Doing: How Can Museums Inspire Young People? will be held at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle on Monday 12 October 2009.
Speakers will include Paul Collard, Culture, Creativity Education, Janice Lane, Glasgow Museums and Sport, Baroness Estelle Morris and Sue Wilkinson, MLA.
The conference will include two practical sessions in which groups of young people will look at how museums in this country are working to engage young people and at inspiring museums internationally. They will then develop their own ideas on how to shape a visionary Museum of the Future.
The young people will present their ideas to the conference enabling them to be heard by museum, youth services, education staff and regional policymakers.
The organisation which represents the UK’s national museums, the National Museum Directors’ Conference (NMDC) and ippr recently published the report Learning to Live: Museums, Young People and Education which addresses key questions about the role of museums and other institutes of material culture in young people’s wellbeing and learning. Authored by prominent and expert figures from the worlds of culture and education, this collection explores what museums, working with policymakers and delivery bodies such as schools, can and should be doing, both within and beyond the classroom, to inspire learning and creativity among all young people. For more information, visit the NMDC website.
The conference is supported by NMDC and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.
Press Enquiries:
For NMDC: Erica Bolton, Bolton & Quinn
Tel: 020 7221 500 (5 lines) Mobile: 07711698186 Email: [email protected]
For ippr: Lorraine Sweeney
Events Manager, ippr north
Tel: +44 (0) 191 233 9051/0