Louisiana State Museum

The Louisiana State Museum seeks to provide uninterrupted and enhanced statewide education services to Louisiana students, teachers, families, and independent learners following the Hurricane Katrina disaster and subsequent evacuation of the museum's education center in New Orleans. IMLS support will enable the Museum to fast track the development of the planned Educational Development Laboratory (EdLab), a comprehensive, statewide musuem education initiative headquartered at the Baton Rouge Capitol Park Branch Museum. In support of lifelong learning, EdLab will provide for the educational needs of learners of all ages, increase the museum's capacity to serve as an effective venue and resource for learning, and enhance the State museum's infrastructure and technology to serve larger, more diverse audiences more effectively. To realize this mission, the EdLab project will accomplish the following strategic goals: --Use current educational research and scholarship to produce an operational blueprint for Museum exhibits and collections --Provide extended and enhanced museum education services to schools, communities, and independent learners --Strengthen cultural and historical education in Louisiana The EdLab prject will serve its intended audience - Louisiana students, teachers, scholars, families, community groups, and visitors to the state - through exhibitions, formal education programs, presentation and lecture series, and Internet projects in support of the State museum's strategic plan. Serving as an investment in the museum's institutional capacity, the EdLab project staff and technology will support the opening of new and expanded facilities, produce exhibit-specific education materials for Museum collections and branch museums, and create a cadre of trained K-12 and museum educators to assist in future training programs. Community outreach programs will promote diversity awareness and preserve our state's rich cultural heritage.