Newark Museum Association

Registrar and curatorial:the newark museum of art's vast and diverse collections of more than 300,000 objects, ranks, in terms of its holdings, among the top 12 museums nationally. The museum's collection comprises artwork in the departments of american art, arts of the americas, arts of the ancient mediterranean, arts of global africa, arts of global asia, decorative arts, numismatics, and a natural science collection. The museum is also the home of the historic ballantine house..

Education and public program:from a child's first encounter with a museum through to high school graduation and beyond, the newark museum of art centers the learner in all its school and family programs. Hands-on experiences support the educational, social, and cultural needs of its audience, providing innovative and engaging school and family programming for visitors of all ages to take part in lifelong learning. These programs are designed to attract diverse audiences and to address the specific needs of local, statewide, and even national communities. Nmoa offers onsite, in-person experiences for children, families and adults while continuing to offer virtual field trips and online learning opportunities for schools and families that they would otherwise be unable to experience.the museum's learning & engagement team continues to be a cultural anchor and advocate for arts partners of all sizes, strengthening relationships with established partners of over 80 local organizations in 2024. Nmoa works with newark-based visual and performing artists, both established and under-recognized, to draw inspiration from the collection and the community to enliven the diverse cultural traditions and histories of the greater newark area through events such as community days, art after dark, classes and workshops, and school residencies. These efforts are supported by the museum's community advisory committee, which comprises leaders from cultural, social, and educational sectors in newark and essex county, who bring added value and important voices to nmoa's exhibitions and public programs.curriculum-aligned programming for k - 12th students and teachersthe museum served over 30,000 new jersey students in grades pre-k through 12 through its extensive offerings of in person school programs. These programs, which utilize an interdisciplinary, arts integration approach to learning, range from single-visit programs to multi-session, in-depth residencies that provide sequential learning. All the museum's school programs align with new jersey state curriculum content standards for art, social studies, and science, and enrich student learning by drawing upon the museum's art and science collections. The museum works closely with school districts, especially the newark public school district, to develop and present programs that meet the needs of new jersey's students. Creative play, an early childhood education program for familiescreative play weekend programs for early childhood audiences and their families continued to serve the youngest of learners through in-person and virtual formats. In these weekly sessions, 677 children ages 3-5, and their caregivers explored the museum's art and science collections through storytelling, song, playful activities, and an art-making project. A selection of 2024 sessions include creative play: mini zoo edition, fun with bluey, storytime in the galleries, and african drum making.family drop-ins & science drop-insfamily drop-in in the court and science drop-ins programs engaged youth and families during the year, for a total of over 5,149 participants. Projects made use of household materials to design, build and test as children explored their creativity and learned new techniques and concepts in art, science and technology. Programs included sessions for youth ages 5-10+ exploring enjoy movement, artmaking, science experiments and storytelling sessions. Camp nmoain 2024, camp nmoa ran for six weeks from july 8 - august 16, 2024. A total of1,902 newark-area children between the ages of 3 and 13 participated in a variety of educational activities that explored the museum's art and science collections. Camp activities included: art making; hands-on workshops in the makerspace; science labs; planetarium shows, outdoor activities; and a weekly showcase including dance, theater and spoken word performances by campers. Explorers programthe newark museum of art (nmoa) explorers program, a college, career, and life readiness program, enables newark-area high school students to build essential skills and self-confidence through a curriculum that draws upon the museum's unique collections, resources, and staff. Over the past year, the explorers program fulfilled its commitment to its 50 students through virtual and in-person workshops, visits, and trainings, culminating with the explorers graduation and nmoa art ball.in july 2024, the explorers kicked off the 2024-2025year. This community of students met weekly either as a group or individually with museum staff for up to 25 hours a week of paid work study in july and august, and up to 7-10 hours per week of independent research and paid work study during the school year. Starting from october 2024, explorers were back in person at the museum and also took part and staffed newly returned onsite community days, public programs, and fundraising events like the annual art ball. Each student dedicated around 60 hours of public program work over the year.beginning in the fall, each explorer spent approximately 40 hours participating in workshop sessions on a variety of topics. These classes ranged in focus from museum-specific training on how to look at and interpret art to real-world instruction on effective communication and career building skills. Museum staff and nmoa partners worked with the explorers on:- art and museum workshops: freshman though senior explorers took part in art-interpretation and presentation workshops with museum staff which covered topics on visual thinking strategies (vts) to engage art-viewers of all ages, tour writing and program development trainings which were used to inspire explorer-led tours and explorer-designed public programs, and artist perspective and identity courses to discuss and understand multivalent perspectives. In addition, the explorers participated in 6 visits to science & art institutions to broaden their understanding of art and science education. These institutions included, the metropolitan museum of art, franklin institute, adventure aquarium in camden harlem historical tour, and the brooklyn museum.- career readiness workshops: explorers honed their professional skills by taking workshops and completing trainings in time management and professional work etiquette to prepare them for their future careers, as well as job application training and assistance with mock interviews and resume building courses to assist them in procuring part time work as high school and college students, and to give them a leg up for joining the workforce upon graduation. - life skill workshops: in order to complement the explorers trainings on educational and professional skills, they also took part in life skills workshops. Public speaking and team building classes allowed the explorers to develop their confidence and eloquence, while financial literacy, budgeting, credit and loan and investing classes gave the explorers a jump start in preparing for life as independent adults.explorers attended sat training as appropriate for their grade level. Museum staff partnered with certified trainers from the princeton review to provide group training sessions on testing and study techniques. In addition, explorers took 18 hours of instruction and 8-10 hours of practice tests. They also had unlimited access to online tools and materials from the princeton review for a full 12-month period. As a result, this year the explorers reported a substantial increase in scores of 150-200 points on average.long-term, longitudinal tracking is done for the museum's explorers program, which follows where students go to college, their choice of majors, whether they graduated and what degrees they were awarded, and what career path they chose.