44TH LEGISLATURE - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - FIRST SESSION, 1999

CONGRATULATING THE SANTA FE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ON ITS TENTH ANNIVERSARY.

WHEREAS, the Santa Fe children's museum celebrates its tenth anniversary on February 21; and

WHEREAS, the Santa Fe children's museum was founded in 1985 by four local educators who were convinced that experiential learning is a necessary complement to traditional education; and

WHEREAS, two thousand people celebrated the opening of the facility in February 1989; and

WHEREAS, more than sixty-four thousand visitors enjoyed the museum in 1995; and

WHEREAS, the museum has six thousand members, with ten thousand school children visiting the facility and ten thousand people participating in outreach programs; and

WHEREAS, the museum's accomplishments include:

A. development of a model informal learning environment where families can play and learn together and children can take responsibility for their own learning;

B. development of quality educational exhibits designed to intrigue the mind and elicit questions about learning;

C. establishment of the education connection, a field-trip program that serves over ten thousand school children per year, including after-school groups from the boys' and girls' club and Monica Roybal center;

D. consistent art and science education programming that is free with museum admission;

E. an exciting environmental education program centered around earthworks, its southwestern horticultural garden and nine-hundred-square-foot greenhouse;

F. informal parent education programming with a bilingual child development specialist on site each week;

G. publication of "Voices of Violence/Visions of Peace", a book documenting Santa Feans' experiences with violence and including a section for parents on raising caring children;

H. establishment of a permanent outreach project, museum-on-wheels, at the children's hospital of New Mexico in Albuquerque;

I. commitment to a diverse, community-based board of trustees;

J. coordination of community educational events such as workshops by Dr. Howard Gardner, Bernice McCarthy and T. Berry Brazelton;

K. establishment of a vital teen volunteer and paid intern program serving over seventy-five youths per year, including referrals from teen court;

L. sound fiscal management of the organization, never operating under a deficit and increasing the budget only when funds become available;

M. expansion of the number of people served through outreach programs such as free Sundays, free passes and sponsored low-income family memberships; and

N. implementation and administration with the Santa Fe public schools of los amigos summer day camp, a program for eighty five-, six- and seven-year-olds at Agua Fria elementary school; and

WHEREAS, the museum is a community-based organization that is client centered with roughly sixty-five percent of its clients being children and eighty-five percent parents or teachers of children; and

WHEREAS, the mission of the Santa Fe children's museum is to build upon a child's natural sense of joy and discovery by cultivating habits of inquiry in the arts, sciences and humanities;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that it congratulate and extend recognition to the Santa Fe children's museum on its tenth anniversary; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the Santa Fe children's museum.