Listen Up! A Grand Announcement!!Yes, Very Grand—Five Hundred Grand!

The Museum of Teaching and Learning is thrilled to share the news that the California state budget for 2021 has now been signed. It includes a line item grant for MOTAL! The provision for $500,000 will help fund the newest MOTAL exhibition, Brain Odyssey: From Conception to Kindergarten. Prior to the pandemic, the creative “Brain Team” had been engaged in research and planning sessions since 2018. MOTAL supporters helped fund the R & D stages through their contributions and attendance at events such as the Celeb Salon series. They may remember how the mascot/narrator, “Brainy,” was looking forward to helping adult visitors better understand the amazing cognitive growth in our youngest children. The exhibition’s interactive stations would assist visitors comprehend the neuroscience and grasp the details of effective parenting and teaching behaviors.

The museum-on-wheels project would require innovative, high-tech wizardry. Its touchscreens could allow visitors to enjoy messaging in their language of choice. MOTAL’s large moving van would be transformed into a place of magical images and solid learning. Such engineering would require large sums of money and MOTAL reached out to their district’s state representative for possible assistance.

The Covid crisis brought everything to a standstill and drove MOTAL to seek other avenues to accomplish its mission during the terrible months of lockdown. Brain Odyssey was there, but warming on a back burner. It is with great pleasure that the museum board and members of the “Brain Team” cherish the funding news so that they can resume “cooking.”
 
The Mission – Provide parents and caregivers with tools to understand and stimulate their young children’s development for positive, lifelong social, emotional, and intellectual growth.

Target Audience – Parents, caregivers and adults with a presence in underserved neighborhoods. MOTAL will employ the Early Development Index (EDI) to help identify key visitation zip codes.
 
Exhibition Goals – Parents, teachers, and caregivers will learn . . .
. . . how explosive brain growth in the earliest years of life creates a critical window of time for children’s long-term brain development.

. . . that appropriate activities and conditions are not complicated and do not need be expensive, such as kitchen tool play, sorting and stacking objects, shared story reading, outdoor exploration, movement, and exercise.


. . . that adults need to be alter their own behaviors that have lifelong negative effects upon the children in their care.


Audience Served – Adults are the focus population, but children who also visit will be accommodated by ingenious exhibitry in appropriate and entertaining ways. During its first years the Brain Odyssey gallery will travel throughout cities of Orange County. The number of visitors is expected to exceed 50,000 per year. The project lends itself to travel outside the county and replication for other locales in California and beyond.


Host Venues – The mobile museum will be trucked to places such as community centers, community colleges, hospitals, children’s centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, libraries, malls, public events, high schools, and universities. Each venue will allow visitors’ use of restroom facilities and, where possible, power hookups. Hosts will be encouraged to devise compatible programs (speakers, book sales, panels, etc.) according to each institution’s unique capacity.


Impact – Brain Odyssey’s effects will be revealed when families adopt best practices as part of their routines at home. Understandings of early childhood brain development must apply to daily parenting/teaching abilities, such as: know how to monitor types of stress, encourage executive function, avoid pitfalls in activities and conversations. A visit to Brain Odyssey will include a parent education component that shares a rich store of ideas.
Visitors will set personal goals for themselves and review vocabulary and concepts through easy-to-use booklets and tokens to take with them. They will have a way to check back with the project through the website brainodyssey.info. In addition, follow-up interviews with randomly selected guests will provide rich qualitative data to allow the project to be responsive to needs.


Funding - Sponsorships and donor contributions will come from a wide assortment of individuals, foundations, government resources, and corporations. The initial major matching funds ($500,000) from the state of California have been made possible through the efforts of Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva and staff, with the support of our state senator.


Where funds go –
1) Curriculum development and writing for wall panels, and for use by docents and by teachers in classrooms prior to and after visits, and editing.
2) Design, graphic and 3-D; engineering and architectural renderings; fabrication and placement of audiovisuals and interactives.
3) Hardware, such as the 48-foot moving van trailer, handicap accessible devices, staircase, lighting, air conditioning, trucking.
4) Software to operate interactives, control speakers, provide translations,
5) On the road: Staff – placement in host venues, scheduling, bookkeeping, driving, A versatile docent will serve as greeter and guide the exhibition experience.


Gifts – MOTAL is a 501(c)(3) and accepts contributions through checks and credit cards. The mailing address: MOTAL, PO Box 3820, Fullerton, CA 92834-3820. MOTAL President/CEO, Greta Nagel, can be reached at [email protected].


Electronic gifts by credit card may be safely committed through Network for Good at https://motal.networkforgood.com/projects/70151-everyday-giving-page.
 
gkn 1/2020
ed. 7/2021


Attached to this email, you will find a PDF of our Brain Team Brief Bios.