News
McGill24 - Museum Crowdfunding!
March 9 is McGill24, the University’s day of giving.
The pitch
Help us bring the hands-on experience of a natural history museum into schools and community venues by supporting the Redpath Museum Discovery Boxes.
Check out our promo video here: https://youtu.be/ZKij3NXK1Ks
The highlights
With your help we can:
- Spark the imagination and curiosity of students and the public, encouraging exploration of new worlds and scientific concepts
- Expand our collection of Discovery Boxes to include new topics
-
Make Discovery Boxes more accessible to underserved and remote communities
The story
Museums are filled with specimens and materials designed to enlighten and educate the inquisitive mind. The Redpath Museum has been closed for the duration of the pandemic, but we’ve developed a completely new model of public programming. We call them our Redpath Museum Discovery Boxes (RMDBs)!
Developed by local researchers and education professionals, RMDBs are durable, hands-on outreach kits with touchable specimens, replicas and lots of information about the Museum’s collections. Many of the boxes are tailored for grades 1 to 6, addressing topics like dinosaurs and geology, world cultures, archaeology, Quebec biodiversity, and ecology. Each box contains information booklets for teachers, student activity sheets, and plenty of interactive objects, including fossils, bones, rocks and minerals, animal furs, tree and bark samples, leaves, seeds, claws and animal footprints.
The Redpath Museum Discovery Box allows kids to touch, hold and examine specimens as if they were in the Museum itself. Each RMDB is loaned for 2 to 4 weeks to local community centres, schools and daycares. Learners can explore the boxes on their own time or take a guided tour of the content through a live video with a museum educator. All boxes are cleaned between venues.
With your support, we will be able to develop and build more RMDBs and make them accessible to groups in underserved communities, so we can equitably share the wonders of natural history and world cultures with all who have a desire to learn.
Donations made through the McGill Crowdfunding site on McGill24 (March 9, 2022) between 12:00am and 11:59pm EST are eligible for a maximum matching ratio of 1:1, for the first $1,000 per donor. If the total donations made during this period exceed the amount of matching funds available, the matching ratio will be adjusted accordingly.