Greetings from Philadelphia!

Natalie Baur
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Philadelphia, PA

I'm into my second week here at the Penn Museum, working as an intern in the Education department. I'm mostly helping out with a program called International Classroom (IC). The IC program brings together international speakers living in the area to talk to museum goers of all ages about everyday life and culture in their countries of origin. I think this is a great way to bring the Museum's archaeological and anthropological collections full-circle and relevant to our global world today. Working as an intern with IC has given me lots of ideas about developing creative ways to use any type of collection.

One of the perks of working with IC has been the amazing people I have gotten to meet and hear speak. On my first day I listened to two guest Native American speakers talk about their basket weaving traditions and their research projects at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. Last week I met a speaker from Egypt who talked to a group of school kids about her life growing up in Egypt. The kids were really curious and thought it was so cool that she grew up right near the ancient pyramids. Later that week I sat in on a program given by a physical anthropologist for high school students. In his presentation, students helped him to solve the 3,000 year -old "murder" case of King Tut (who, by the way, was never murdered as far as physical anthropologists can tell with modern analysis). For kids to have the opportunity to see a talk by an anthropologist who was worked extensively in Egypt and with the traveling King Tut exhibit is amazing. Maybe they don't realize that they are so lucky today, but because the speakers are so engaging and interesting, I have a feeling the kids will remember something about what they heard for the rest of their lives.

Among other things, I've been working on developing some educational materials for kids and teachers for the Canaan and Ancient Israel gallery. I've also been working on developing a new map key for a textile representation of a world map that was done in 1991. Along with the key I am also developing a take-away brochure that explains how the world has changed since the textile map was made and it will also include some activities for kids.

Things are busy, but get more interesting every day. I have the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people who are leaders in their fields of scholarship.