Making History Meaningful
The Mint can play an important role supplementing our formal school system by reaching a broad demographic of ages and backgrounds to give people the skills they need for the 21st century. The Mint will take a participatory approach to free-choice learning environments, with exhibits that focus on content-based problem solving activities and "hands-on" experiences that engage all of the senses. Examples of our immersive learning approach include:
- Learn by Perspective. Demonstrate how the interpretation of history differs depending upon the perspective you choose, by exploring different vantage points.
- Case Studies. Link important contemporary issues (e.g. water scarcity, immigration, healthcare reform) with knowledge from the past through empirical data and analysis.
- Bring History Alive. Collaboration with other institutions to create experiential programs and events where children and adults can immerse themselves in our history and culture to touch it, engage in it and have fun with it.
- World without History. Use our scenario planning room and web applications like Alternate Reality Games to allow visitors to develop different scenarios of the past or future.
- Applied Scholarly Research. Organize educational workshops that link key historical events from the Bay Area to the present. (e.g. What lessons can we learn from rebuilding San Francisco between 1906-1915 that can help other communities rebuild today?)
- Play as you experience the Bay Area. Connect with and explore the city's neighborhoods and surrounding regions, through Geocaching scavenger hunts, Citizen Curator projects, and other activities.
Multi-disciplinary approach to learning.
No Child Left Behind. Take a multi-disciplinary approach for developing history curriculum that integrates with other subjects such as mathematics, science and language arts. (e.g. using geometry and math to investigate the history of the Golden Gate Bridge).
Prediction Theater: A participatory history game/ show in which visitors use the past to predict the future and understand themselves as active agents in the future of history. It encourages visitors to take what they have learned about innovative breakthroughs in history to help them project future innovations.