Week 3, part three, Work

Front of the Navy Yard museum

I realised I haven't said much about what I do during the week, when I'm not sight-seeing.

I work in the Navy museum's Education Department, which gives tours, home-school lessons, and summer camps, as well as hosting school visits. I work with a team of American interns who are all college students and History "majors" (History is the primary focus of their studies), some come from as far away as Los Angeles, California, but most are local, from Virginia, Arlington and Maryland. We write up lesson plans, using books and the museum's existing curriculum, we make up folders for the students and we set up experiments and equipment for the activities in lessons!

The last week saw the beginning of the first of the summer camps, based around the construction of an underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle). Each day has a lesson (focusing on Naval history, e.g. how an underwater ROV uncovered the Titanic, or a reel of American satellite film during the Cold War) an activity (e.g. making "submarines" out of water bottles, coins and tape) and then the students work in groups to make their robots, with us assisting them.

The students, who range from about 9 to 15 years old, are sometimes accompanied by parents and relatives, sometimes not. A few of the "moms and dads" help out with the circuit boards because they're engineers or they have experience with electronics. Despite the fact that I haven't held a soldering iron in over 5 years, nor have I ever used a drill, I've really enjoyed helping each group with their project! It's incredible how much even the youngest students are capable of, watching them finally get to race their under water vehicles in a horse-trough was very rewarding!

Barry! Display ship (retired Destroyer) docked outside the museum.

A pretty unique surrounding to work in...

Army personnel regularly turn up just to see what's going on, or to look around the museum. Sometimes they observe lessons, or help out. Live music streams every morning as I walk past the Marine Barracks, I think it's a marching band which accompanies the raising of the flag or something.

2 Awkward moments whilst running the camp this week;

1. A 10 year old boy is playing on one of the guns in the museum, shooting at an imaginary enemy. "Who are you shooting at?" I ask, "the British of course!"he replies...
2. Some of the younger children seem to have trouble understanding my accent. One boy watched me give a safety demonstration only to ask at the end; "what are googles?". Now I say "safety glasses". In addition, it took about 5 minutes to clarify what the word "soldering" meant, because in the U.S it's pronounced "SAW-DER-RING". Also, petri dishes are pronounced "PEE-TREE" dishes. This is just like the "pipe-ettes" episode.