Rural School Districts Benefit from Federal Grants to UA Museum

Submitted by Kerynn Fisher
Phone: (907) 474-6941
10/15/03

Students, teachers and parents from Barrow to Delta Junction to Metlakatla - and anyone with Internet access - will have the University of Alaska Museum’s teaching resources at their fingertips, thanks to two grants recently awarded to the museum - $445,732 from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) and $149,824 from the federally funded Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The TOP grant builds on work over the last several years to use the Internet to bring the museum’s collections into classrooms for lessons in art, science, history and culture. In addition to funding smart classrooms in Alaska’s rural Delta/Greely and Yukon-Koyukuk school districts, the grant will fund the development of MoliNet, the Museum Objects Library Interface Network, a partnership between the museum, UAF’s Rasmuson Library and Fairbanks’ Noel Wien Public Library. The electronic database of museum objects will be the first of its kind in the nation to integrate museum resources into a searchable, online library catalog.

For example, a student in Kaltag or Delta Junction conducting online research on "Mt. McKinley" for a school project might bring up an image of Sydney Laurence’s 1919 oil painting Mt. McKinley along with links to an animation on plate tectonics affecting the Alaska Range, an audio clip of a geographer discussing the two names for the mountain, photographs of local flora and fauna or video interviews with mountain climbers, artists and Native elders, as well as a list of more traditional library resources. Using new computers funded by the grants, teachers in the Delta/Greely and Yukon-Koyukuk school districts will be able to follow "virtual tours" or develop their own tours to target specific curriculum needs.

"When it comes to home computers and Internet use, Alaskans are among the most wired in the country," says Museum Director Aldona Jonaitis. "I think it’s only fitting that an Alaska museum lead the nation in making its collections available over the Internet as a teaching resource, particularly for schools and families in rural communities that have limited access to museums and libraries."

Funding from the IMLS grant will help make the multimedia resources available to museum and library users throughout Alaska. It’s all part of the museum’s effort to create a "sense of place" and to make its resources available to wider audiences, both in Fairbanks and over the Internet.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) provides matching grants to state, local, and tribal governments and non-profit entities for projects that demonstrate innovative uses of digital network technologies in underserved communities. This is the second TOP grant the UA Museum has received; the museum received $394,775 in its first TOP grant in October 2000. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) helps museums across the country use their collections, resources and technology to serve wider and more diverse audiences. This is the first major IMLS grant the UA Museum has received. Both national grant programs are highly competitive.

For more information or to schedule a demonstration of the UA Museum’s multimedia education resources, contact Kerynn Fisher, Communications Coordinator, University of Alaska Museum, at 907.474.6941.