Online Class Offering: The Green Museum

You can build your value to your museum, and your museums' value to the public by understanding the basics of environmental sustainability. Who wouldn't want to save money while advancing the museum's mission?

I'll be teaching The Green Museum: An Introduction to Environmental Sustainability in Museums, beginning the week of February 4th, for a four-week, self-scheduled, online class through the Northern States Conservation Center, a major provider of online professional education for the field.

Description:
Explore how the realities and principles of environmental sustainability can be applied to museum situations. The course includes discussions about the philosophy of going green, and how it affects institutional policy and planning. Students will be required to keep a journal, collect photographs, and to visit two museums – one not your own. Upon completing this course, students will be able to:
1. Apply principles of environmental-sustainability to work and personal decisions
2. Identify and test facts, understand trade-offs, and recognize mission-effects related to environmental sustainability when they make choices at their museums for programming, and operational projects
3. Encourage others to adopt sustainable practice within a museum context; and support others in bringing about change in an institution and in the field

Details:
MS265: The Green Museum: Introduction to Environmental Sustainability in Museums
Instructor: Sarah S. Brophy
Dates: Feb 4 to Mar 1, 2013
Price: $475
Location: Online at www.museumclasses.org

To reserve a spot in the course, please pay at http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html If you have trouble please contact Helen Alten at helen@collectioncare.org

Logistics:
Participants in The Green Museum: Introduction to Environmental Sustainability in Museums work at their own pace through sections and interact through online chats. Instructor Sarah Brophy is available at scheduled times during the course for discussion and support. The Green Museum includes online literature and student-teacher/group-teacher dialog. The course is limited to 20 participants.



 

STEM, Environmental Sustainability, and Museum Work

The President's Advisory Council on Science and Technology  published a report last week called "Engage to Excel". It was all about what's missing and what's required in US efforts to engage students in Science Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) learning so that the country can graduate an additional million 21st Century-ready students from college.
No job is isolated from STEM learning, its says. STEM skills are called for in so many actions, and often without us realizing it.

Sounds like a description of sustainability skills to me. No job is isolated from sustainability skills, and they are called for in so many actions and often without us realizing it. And we'd be better at our jobs if we were conscious of, and continuously cultivating sustainability skills.
In five years, sustainability skills will be critical to all museum workers. You'll need it to make environmental control decisions, manage the garbage, choose and manage your utilities, design and select resources for exhibits and special events, and of course understand it if you are rehabilitating, expanding or building a museum.

Will you have sustainability skills?

Here's a quote from the report with "sustainability" replacing 'STEM" in every instance: In general, no job is completely isolated from the influence of new technologies and new ideas. All Americans regularly encounter the products of [sustainability] in their jobs and in their daily lives, though they may not recognize the connection with [sustainability] subjects. The decisions individuals make in supermarkets, doctors’ offices, and voting booths often depend at least in part on ideas drawn from [sustainability] fields. To the extent that people are comfortable and familiar with [sustainability] concepts, they are better able to take advantage of new opportunities and make good decisions on [sustainability]-related issues. In doing so, they help create a cultural environment that is conducive to [sustainability] endeavors and to the benefits those endeavors can produce. p. 122

Environmental sustainability isn't the local dialect yet, but when it is, will you be fluent enough to do your job?