Learning

Take a Virtual Museum Tour

Today’s post for “Social Sunday” on the Ohio 4-H Facebook page encourages you to tour a museum virtually with friends and gives several suggestions of museums to visit. I thought this topic fit well with Friday’s post about planning an imaginary road trip. In the case of a virtual tour, you can take the trip, it’s just virtual. Whether you tour with friends or by yourself, it’s a great way to have fun and learn at the same time.

Virtual tours can consist of a collection of videos, still images, 3D walk-throughs, and written descriptions that help you feel as though you’re visiting the museum. Although it will not be everything in the museum’s collection, you will still get to see some amazing things.

The Google Arts & Culture site is a gold mine of virtual museum tours. This online platform will connect you with over 2,000 museums from 80 countries. Art, culture, history, and science will be at your fingertips. I think you will be amazed at the diversity of offerings. You can sort them alphabetically and also view a map that shows geographic locations. I found at least 15 that I had already visited., but you could visit a different one every day for a year and still have more to see!

Some of these museums are close to us in Ohio – the Toledo Art Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont. Others are worlds away – from Australia to Uzbekistan and everywhere in between. I found several that I know I will go back to visit virtually – including the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, and the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. So many others piqued my curiosity – whether it was the topic or the location: the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Netherlands; the Art Museum of Estonia; and the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, just to name a few. I’m looking forward to more exploration, and like the imaginary road trip, maybe someday I will get to visit more of these museums in person.

Virtual museum tours are a way to exercise your creative wellness, one of many wellness dimensions. Creative wellness has been called the missing link in boosting well-being. Research shows that engagement with artistic activities, either as an observer or a creator, can enhance a person’s mood and thus they play a role in reducing stress. Taking time to appreciate others’ creative efforts help us to appreciate the world around us, connect with others, and may inspire our own creative spirit. Expressing your emotions and views through the arts can be a great way to practice self-care and to cultivate social connections.

Today’s Take-Away: Visit the Google Arts & Culture website, find a least one museum that interests you, and invite a friend or family member to take a virtual tour with you.

Visit the Ohio 4-H Mental Health Month page for more resources, and come back here for more information and ideas.

Yours in Health,

Signature

Theresa Ferrari, Extension Specialist, 4-H Youth Development

Daily Dose – Learning about Learning

2 ohotos of girls with masks

4-H’ers are using their sewing skills to make masks

When we think of education, we might automatically think about school. But learning is not limited to what happens in a building during certain times of day or months of the year. Opportunities to learn are all around us!

4-H’s motto is learn by doing. 4-H members select a topic they are interested in and complete a project, which is a set of self-directed learning experiences. These learning activities help them to master some new knowledge and learn some new skills.

In this time when some aspects of our lives have been restricted by the coronavirus and the stay-at -home orders, schoolwork has switched to home and students have substituted the dining room table for their desk.

In spite of these challenges, we have some great examples of learning. For some, that means learning some new technology, like Zoom, to conduct our meetings (although five Zoom meetings in a day is a bit much!). Another example of learning is using skills you already have, but they are put to use in new ways. A wonderful example is our 4-H Health Heroes. These teen leaders are using the skills they learned in 4-H sewing projects to sew masks for themselves and family members and for essential workers on the front lines.

Kylie Arnett, 4-H Health Hero from Hocking County, is making masks; she donated some of the masks she made to the Logan Police Department

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natalia Kresic, 4-H Health Hero from Mahoning County, sewing masks for essential workers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout our life we will be confronted with opportunities to learn and to apply what we’ve learned. Learning is not over when we complete high school. Ultimately, we want to be lifelong learners.

When I think about a lifelong learner, I think of my maternal grandmother, who survived the flu pandemic in 1918. She lived in northern Italy and was 21 in 1918; she came to the U.S. in 1920. Like many immigrants, she had to learn a new language and a new way of life. Many of my favorite childhood memories are of her telling me stories about when she was a girl growing up in Italy. One saying that she had was “Impara l’arte e mettila da parte.” A rough translation is “learn an art and put it aside,” but the literal translation does not communicate the meaning behind it, which is that what you learn no one can take from you, and it will not go to waste. Although she had only completed a 4th grade education, she was a very wise woman. When I was having a difficult day in school, I would remember her words, and I still remember them to this day.

The changes in our lives during the current pandemic have required us to learn new things, haven’t they? If you’re looking for some ideas, how about taking advantage of some of the perfect Stay-at-Home 4-H project books that are now available as PDFs online. And today’s 4-H Journal Page has some questions to get you thinking about how you learn.

Today’s Journal is Learning about Learning! Check it out!