The Coshocton County Beacon March 27, 2025 | Page 20

20 • The Beacon March 27, 2025

Program introduces tweens and teens to museum

By Marianne Austin The Beacon

Every second Monday of the month from 6-7:30 p. m., the Johnson Humrickhouse Museum will host a new program for area teens called the Tween Museum Takeover. Twelve kids attended the first meeting. As an icebreaker, each person filled out an information form, then crumpled up the sheet into a ball for a snowball fight. Whatever snowball they ended up with, they were required to find that person as a way of getting to know each other.

“ This is our Tween Takeover for ages 12-14. We are trying to get this age group into the museum,” said Jennifer Bush, museum director.“ We have preschoolers that come, and school-age kids come with their tours, but we are missing the

Marianne Austin

Every second Monday of the month from 6-7:30 p. m., the Johnson Humrickhouse Museum will host a new program for area teens called the Tween Museum Takeover.

middle school age group as well as the high-schoolers. So we are trying to make the museum a fun place to hang out. We’ re doing crafts, experiments, looking at the collections, playing

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BF-269643 games and doing some fun things.”

Bush said as the group gets established and is coming every month, they will get them involved with planning things, helping to set up exhibits and working with the collections a little.

“ We want this group to be involved with the museum at their age level,” she said.“ We’ re not going to send them upstairs and say

Marianne Austin

The museum has a button-making set so each person can make pin buttons or a bracelet.

put an exhibit up, but these kids are the future of the museum. Whether it’ s this museum or any museum, we want them to realize that museums aren’ t stuffy places with just old things. You can really have a lot of fun at museums.”

The youth were given a quick tour of the museum.

“ What we have in the museum is about a quarter of what we have in storage in the collection area,” Bush said.“ We have roughly 25,000 artifacts, and that doesn’ t include the Native American archaeological collection. Most of our exhibits stay the same. We change out our light-sensitive objects. Although with our LED lights, we don’ t have to change them out as much. Our textile and things sensitive to gravity, like dresses, the quilt hanging in the Early Ohio Gallery, anything that would be affected by just hanging, also are changed.”

Bush said they were keeping things simple for the first day. They learned primitive ways of survival in early Ohio. The teens got to hold and feel the pelts from wildlife in this area that the settlers preserved, had an opportunity to hold tools and utensils that were handcrafted, and the museum has a buttonmaking set so each person could make pin buttons or a bracelet, followed by refreshments.

Calling All Tweens is a new program designed for 12- to 14-year-olds, but those a little younger or a little older are welcome. This event offers an opportunity to explore how the museum operates behind the scenes. Next month they are planning a scavenger hunt for teens to go in the basement and visit the collection area.

For more information about Tween Museum Takeover or other museum programs, visit www. jhmuseum. org / or call 740-622- 8710.

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