Penn Museum Outreach to Inner City Students

Figure 1 - the Penn Museum Mummy Mobiles

     I recently had the pleasure of having lunch with Tracy Carter of the Penn Museum. She gave me an overview of a really exciting program the Museum is doing to get inner city students interested in history and museums.

     The program, called "Mummy Makers" brings replicas of ancient Egyptian artifacts to seventh grade students in their schools and then shows the students how mummies were made. What kid can resist that! The highlight of the program is showing students how something the size of the brain was removed through something as small as the nose. They do this using jello (watch the video clip to see how they do this).

     Last year over 5,500 Philadelphia students had this program brought to their schools. Additionally, the students are given vouchers that can be redeemed for a free year long family membership to the museum. Hopefully this will also get the parents of the students interested as well.

     Last, but not least, Tracy explained the mummy mobiles that I photographed outside the museum during a recent visit there (see figure 1). This is how the museum staff get to the schools to bring this wonderful learning experience to the kids. So yes Tracy, I will admit it, Mummy Mobiles are cooler than the Bat Mobile!