What is the Museum Youth Club?

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The San Bernardino County Museum Youth Club is a group of seventh and eighth graders who get together at the Museum each week to learn more about the world and their place in it. They explore new ideas, do activities, make new friends, and have fun together while learning more about the Museum and all that it holds. MYC members attend weekly meetings, go on field trips, have sleepovers, and volunteer at the Museum.

We Attend

• Weekly meetings (Wednesday or Thursday) from 3:25 – 6:00 p.m.
• Sleepovers
• Field Trips
• Special Activities

We Learn

• In 2008-09, we’ll learn about prehistoric people in this area when we explore anthropology and archaeology. We experience what their lives might have been like by making and using some of the tools, musical instruments, clothing, and games they used long ago. We will take a special field trip to try to discover some prehistoric artifacts ourselves.
  
• In the spring of 2009, we will learn about living things, like plants and animals and the environment they live in. We’ll spend a lot of time in the Exploration Station, our live animal gallery, learning about the animals that live here at the Museum. We will take a day-long biology field trip in the spring to The Living Desert.
  
• In 2009 – 10, we will focus on geology and paleontology. We will visit the Geology Division of the Museum and talk to the curators of geology and paleontology. We will try earthquake experiments on buildings we construct. We’ll collect rocks and minerals, make crystals, see the San Andreas Fault, and much more. We plan to go to the La Brea Tar Pits to see some Ice Age fossils.
  
• History will be the topic in the spring of 2010, when we’ll learn about people and their lives in the “old days” of San Bernardino County. We’ll explore a cemetery, create pictures of old houses, make adobe bricks, dip candles, take some “historic” mini-field trips in the Redlands area, and other fun activities. In the spring, we will have an all-day field trip to get a taste of old California.
  
• At the end of each year, we invite our families to our annual MYC Family Party, where we share some of the activities and games we learned that year.
  

We Volunteer

• All MYC members volunteer at the Museum at least 10 hours each year.
  
• We help kids learn while they enjoy cool, hands-on activities at the Museum’s Family Fun Daysthroughout the year.
  
• At our living history Adobe Days, we get to dress up and lead visitors as they experience some of the activities that people did in the 1800s, like rug-beating, adobe brick-making, candle-dipping, and making corn husk dolls.
  
• We help kids create art using the wonderful supplies that nature provides during the Wildlife Art Festival in November.
  
• We introduce young children to Santa at our Santa’s Pajama Party in December.
  
• We teach people more about trains during our All Aboard! Train Days in January.
  
• We go buggy at the Insectival in March!
  

How Can You Join the Museum Youth Club?

MYC adds new seventh grade members to join returning eighth grade members in the fall of each year. Seventh graders who are interested in joining MYC must complete an application. The completed application needs to be turned in to Nancy Kirkwood, the Museum Youth Club Coordinator, at one of the mandatory MYC Orientation meetings. If you wish to join the Wednesday group, come to the Orientation on either September 24 or October 1. If you wish to join the Thursday group, come to the Orientation on either September 25 or October 2. Everyone at each Orientation has an equal opportunity of acceptance; the Orientation you attend will not affect your application.

Since the Museum Youth Club is limited in size, the Museum staff will evaluate the applications and all students will be notified of the results by October 9, 2008. The first meeting for all new seventh grade Museum Youth Club members will be either Wednesday, October 15 or Thursday, October 16, 2008.

To apply, just print the four-page application, and then bring it to the Museum at:

San Bernardino County Museum Youth Club
2024 Orange Tree Lane
Redlands, California 92374

Mandatory MYC Member and Parent Orientation:
All students who want to be in the Museum Youth Club in 2008-09 must attend an Orientation with one or both parents/guardians. We will give a short presentation about what the Museum Youth Club is and does, expectations, and responsibilities. Parents will organize the MYC snack schedule and arrange carpools from the various school sites. Parents and kids will get a chance to talk to the MYC staff and some current MYC members, and get all of their questions answered.

• Location – Education Center
  San Bernardino County Museum
  2024 Orange Tree Lane
  Redlands, California
  
• If you want to attend the Wednesday MYC meetings, please attend Orientation on either September 24 or October 1 from 5:45 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
  
• If you want to attend the Thursday MYC meetings, please attend Orientation on either September 25 or October 2 from 5:45 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
  

Questions ???

For more information about our program, please contact Nancy Kirkwood, Museum Youth Club Coordinator, at 909-307-2669, ext. 271, or e-mail us at: nkirkwood@sbcm.sbcounty.gov