MIM Field Trips Help Students Connect with Cultural Heritage August 14, 2024 Celebrations: Latin America tour is popular with school and youth groups Children use MIM’s headsets to listen to a video display in the Latin America Gallery’s Cuba exhibit. MIM’s field trips take young guests on journeys around the world through music, offering participants exciting opportunities to connect with their heritage. In Arizona, many young people have roots in Latin America, and MIM’s newest field trip, Celebrations: Latin America, has quickly become popular with Phoenix-area school and youth groups. Celebrations: Latin America focuses on festivals and visits the Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Mexico exhibits, among others. The field trip is designed for learners ages 5–8 and includes hands-on drumming or musical story time in addition to gallery exploration with a museum guide. “Our children connected with their ancestral heritage,” says a kindergarten and 1st grade teacher from the Pendergast Elementary School District whose class took a Celebrations: Latin America tour this year. A drawing included in a thank-you note to MIM shows a 4th grade student’s favorite part of their field trip: playing a Little Martin guitar in the Experience Gallery. “They came away from MIM with a sense of wonder, of how they, too, can learn to play musical instruments.” During the tour, participants also watch a video of a Bolivian musician playing the charango—a small, guitar-like instrument emblematic of the Andes—and learn how performers at Peruvian festivals cooperatively share the melody of a song between different sets of siku panpipes. Many students are amazed at the athleticism of Peru’s scissors dancers and appreciate the ornate decorations of the bumba-meu-boi ox costume in the Brazil exhibit and the vejigante Carnival mask in the Puerto Rico exhibit. “My students were . . . able to immerse themselves in understanding their musical roots,” says a 2nd grade teacher from the Alhambra Elementary School District, who was also pleased that students learned about instruments from many different cultures. Students love the free-choice learning portion of the field trip, when they use MIM’s Sennheiser guidePORT headsets to experience exhibits in the Geographic Galleries at their own pace. At the end of a recent Celebrations: Latin America tour, one child remarked that listening to the different types of music was their favorite part of the trip. “The students expressed that it was the best day ever,” says another 2nd grade teacher from the Alhambra Elementary School District. “They also shared that they wanted to bring their families to the museum.” Learn more about MIM’s field trips.
