weekly science classes at the museum

I was meant to upload something about this last week and the week snuck up on me and turned into this week before I knew it!

First - the note from Nicola about the vague possibility of science classes:

I spoke to Amadeo last week about the possibility of running some
science classes at the museum this term. He has yet to confirm them
with his manager, but it looks like we might be able to have a
homeschooling class run on Friday mornings, as well as a senior
Discovery Club (for ages 12 and over) on Thursday afternoons. If you’re
interested in either class, please email me and I’ll compile a list to keep
everyone updated.

And secondly, this week's updated and slightly more confirmed information:

Update on science classes
I’m expecting to hear confirmation (or not) about the two science classes tomorrow evening, but in the meantime, here’s a bit more info about what Amadeo is planning. For people who have children in both age groups, it might be more practical to send them all to the Thursday afternoon sessions, where the different age groups will run separately but alongside each other. As far as I’m aware, the cost will be $65 per term, per child, or $10 per week—the science classes normally run for 8 weeks.

From Amadeo:
“This Term I am planning to look into how to become the best scientist using our senses. I have some kids coming from school too so my plans this year will be different to the plans in which we just stayed in the lab upstairs doing experiments, because we do that in school... so at the museum I will make the most of THE MUSEUM. Experiments will take place in the tropical forest and in the museum galleries as much as I can, always linked to the museum collections. If seniors come on Thursday I will start teaching like in those small rural schools where many ages are all in the one class :-) I will plan the same activity at different levels, and will ask for a communicator to help during the duration of the session. The introduction to the session will be the same to all, then we would break into groups, and I will show the seniors more complex experiments: like the dissection of a butterfly in the tropical forest or a chemical reaction to allow limestone formation in the geology section of the Southern Lands gallery. Juniors would try simpler versions of those same experiments. A museum communicator would stay with the juniors all the time going through the more basic experiments with them and I would check how they do throughout the session while the seniors keep in task with their stuff. I also like the idea of the juniors checking out what the seniors are doing, and also in terms of museum links for juniors AND seniors to see how museum staff (even more senior lol) are doing too in connection to our science theme, like how Murry takes care of the butterflies, or Cody skeletonize animals for an exhibition.

We will see like that in Term 1 that all that scientists do is use the five senses to get as much information of the world as possible to try to understand the truth of why things are how they are, and create things to help us live a better life! Oh! Isn't science the best! :-) If in Monday the Friday morning group gets the go-ahead I will just keep what we did on Thursday after-school and repeat it for the "morning group" at 10am every Friday. I will call it a Discovery Club morning group and will keep it open to anyone that wants to come, so that it is not seen as something the museum is doing exclusively for the home-schoolers, but another programme for all our community. Thats more along the lines of what we do at the museum.”