VISTA members develop mobile education trunks for Homesteader

Posted 7/15/21

The Homesteader Museum is going mobile.  

Brandi Wright, the Homesteader’s director and curator, had the idea of putting together trunks of museum items that can be taken to schools, …

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VISTA members develop mobile education trunks for Homesteader

Posted

The Homesteader Museum is going mobile. 

Brandi Wright, the Homesteader’s director and curator, had the idea of putting together trunks of museum items that can be taken to schools, community centers and homes, to teach about Wyoming history. 

“We’re trying to bring the museum outside the walls of the museum,” Wright said, adding, “It’s something we could take to The Heartland, or the [Rocky Mountain] Manor, or if you’re a homeschooling family, you could educate with it.”

Registrar Michela Morrissey took up the project last year as part of her service with the VISTA program. Morrisey took the trunk to Westside Elementary in May, to teach third graders about Wyoming history, and she said it went over well. 

The trunk contains things like an old waffle iron, a butter mold and clothes from the Powell area’s homesteading period. The museum pieces aren’t fragile or valuable, so kids can try on the clothes, touch the items and pass them around.

“It’s things they can play with that we’re not worried about getting broken,” Morrisey explained. 

For the older kids, she created another trunk dedicated to the history of women’s suffrage in Wyoming. It contains clothes, letters, and display boards telling the story of famous women in Wyoming history, such as Esther Morris, who was appointed justice of the peace for South Pass District in 1870.

Morrissey also created lesson plans to go with the trunks, which include activities, word searches, coloring pages and suggested readings. 

In the coming school year, the Homesteader Museum hopes to bring more presentations to the Powell classrooms and perhaps some home-schooled students. They also continue to develop the mobile trunk project. 

“It’s still kind of a work in progress,” Wright said. 

Morrissey, who is from Connecticut, completed her master’s degree in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs in 2020. Just as she was seeking opportunities to start her career, the COVID-19 pandemic closed down museums on the East Coast. She pursued the VISTA program, as it offered the opportunity to work in a museum. 

Besides the mobile trunk program, she also worked on the Homesteader’s downtown walking tour, which documents the history of old buildings in downtown Powell.

During her work as a VISTA volunteer, Morrissey found she liked Wyoming, and in June, she was hired as the Homesteader’s registrar and collections manager.

The continuance of the mobile trunk program now falls to a new VISTA volunteer, Micheal Lamble, who comes to Powell from Chicago. 

Lamble will continue working on the existing trunks, and he’s also developing one to tell the history of the Shoshone Project, which constructed the system of irrigation dams, reservoirs and canals that the area’s agriculture depends on. 

VISTA is an AmeriCorps program. The federal grant that funds the program is managed by the Powell Economic Partnership. 

Volunteers serve one year, building capacity in the communities where they live through activities such as fundraising, grant writing and research. The opportunity prepares them for a life of service in the public, private or nonprofit sectors.

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