Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History today announced that the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation has made a $40,000 grant toward the educational component of the new West Virginia State Museum.
Reid-Smith said, “With this grant award, the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation is helping us to develop an educational program that meets the 21st-century content standards and objectives for West Virginia schools. We are most grateful to the Foundation for this generous gift which embodies their commitment to education, and we look forward to working with them in the future.”
The Division’s education staff is collaborating with the State Board of Education and its Regional Education Service Agencies (RESA) to ensure that the museum’s educational program will combine multiple disciplines and target all grade levels. A group of educators will convene to develop curriculum programs and materials for the initial Teachers Resource Kit and Curriculum Guide.
The new museum will have two education centers for use by teachers. A computer lab will provide access to a virtual museum, interactive research tools and hands-on learning activities. An audio-visual room will provide space with videos, movies, and more, to further interpret West Virginia’s rich history.
The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation is a charitable community trust organized in 1962 to accept contributions, create and administer funds, and make grants for the benefit of the people of the Greater Kanawha Valley. The Foundation seeks to enrich the lives of those it serves by being the premier provider of philanthropic and charitable services for all citizens in its region.
The 32-year-old West Virginia State Museum, located in the lower level of the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex, is currently in the construction phase of renovation. The history of the state will be told in the new 23,000-square-foot museum through modern exhibits that will appeal to visitors of all ages. There will be a show path, which is a chronological journey of West Virginia history, using themed settings to highlight pivotal moments. Special effects, narration, first-person accounts, surround sound, and dynamic theater lighting will help visitors experience what it was like to be a West Virginian during the most important moments in the state’s history.
In addition, there will be discovery rooms to provide visitors with an opportunity to learn more about the history of West Virginia. The discovery rooms will feature artifacts, works of art, stories, music, and film clips. The connections rooms will allow visitors to dig deeper into West Virginia history and culture with computer stations, and provide facts about topics not covered in the show path and discovery rooms. The last scene as the visitor exits the museum will be a slide show of sites and tourist attractions in the state and a kiosk where they can access information about sites all around West Virginia. The new West Virginia State Museum is slated to open next year.
For more information about the renovation project or the grant award, contact Jacqueline Proctor, deputy commissioner of the Division, at (304) 558-0220.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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