Marsha MacDowell

Quilted Together: Material Culture Pedagogy and the Quilt Index, a Digital Repository of Thematic Collections

The online Quilt Index is a searchable repository of digital images, audiovisual resources, and documents representing over 50,000 quilts and associated quiltmakers and quilt-related activities, along with ephemera and interpretive materials including lesson plans and essays. Building on the largest grassroots scholarly movement in the decorative arts, the 10-year-old Index serves a diverse audience of educators, researchers, collectors, curators, and artists by addressing pedagogical challenges including training users, studying material objects in virtual environments, conveying scale, and maximizing the value of visits to the website. Future initiatives include cultural and geographic expansion, computer learning games, and developing visual searches.

Folkpatterns: A Place-Based Youth Cultural Heritage Education Program

Abstract In 1978, the Michigan State University Museum and Michigan 4-H Youth Development teamed together to develop Folkpatterns, a program to engage youth across the state of Michigan in cultural heritage educational activities. With support from National Endowment for the Humanities grants, 4-H education and museum-based humanities specialists, along with youth advisors and community-based volunteer leaders, planned and implemented an array of programs, publications, and events that have engaged thousands of youth and their adult leaders in investigations of personal, family, and community histories and folk traditions. The program has been replicated in total and in part by other states, and many of the elements have been adopted for use in other youth educational settings including public schools. Nearly thirty years later, this partnership between 4-H and the Michigan State University Museum is still going, many of the elements have been institutionalized, and new directions are constantly being exp...