Kinetic energy, ant empires, giant fossils and water fun: The Montshire Museum engages minds of all ages

In another life I must have been a scientist because, despite the fact that I'm an art writer, I am and always have been fascinated with a broad swath of the sciences, from quantum physics, astronomy and entomology to superstring theory, archaeology and botany. Fortunately, there's a nearby haven for people like me who never quite made it to MIT but who always keep a copy of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on hand for those frequent "must-know" moments.

The Montshire Museum houses a dynamic collection of engaging, interactive and multi-themed natural and physical sciences displays, as well as special traveling exhibits that are accessible and fascinating to every member of the family, whether it's the Wind Wall, the Frog Calls, the Heat Camera or the water activities outside.

Though my kids think I take them there out of the generosity of my motherly heart, the truth is I look forward to every semi-monthly or so trip we make just as much as they do. And when they head off to explore the theater of Fireflies, the Resonant Pendulum or the Bikevator, they know they can usually find me at one of two places: the Leafcutter Ants exhibit or the Honey Bees' hive.

At one end of what is a veritable kingdom of ant civilization — with Plexiglas boxes housing civic locales such as a dump and a graveyard, all linked together like a futuristic New England connected farm — an articulated magnifying lens is suspended over a factory teeming with activity. We get extreme close-ups of leaves being industriously cut and carried by the mediae ants, who transport them through a clear tube to the fungus garden, supervised by the smallest workers, called minims.

I have yet to spot the reclusive queen, which could be a good thing as she apparently has relatives in South America the size of hamsters. When it comes to serving her people, this monarch puts all others to shame. The story goes that she mated once 12 years ago and saved the sperm, fertilizing her own eggs and mothering the entire colony single-tarsally ever since. She is one feisty formicida and I, for one, find her and the family business riveting.

Leafcutter ant society is remarkable, particularly in terms of self-sufficiency. They are apparently the only animals beside humans that grow their own food, so we eco-glutton bi-peds have a lot to learn from these tireless farmers. They also outweigh us: As much as 20 percent of the total weight of all land animals worldwide is comprised of ants. Ergo, whenever I see one on the floor, I don't bother squishing it; there's no point, they'll be in charge eventually anyway.

The honey bee community is equally mesmerizing, with drones and workers going about their business in a hive that's completely visible and connected to the outdoors, allowing us to watch them taking off and coming in for a landing, laden with pollen.

Whether low-tech or state-of-the-art, live specimens or taxidermy, whimsical or scholarly, each display at the Montshire Museum is creative, captivating and compelling for every age. On the second level, near vitrines containing birds, their nests and delicate eggs, there are exquisite cases of preserved dragonflies, butterflies, moths and beetles, and nearby a massive moose, whose fur you can touch, watches over the gallery.

On the ground floor, there are bubble activities, aquariums, inventive puzzles and a zoetrope, as well as an under-5s play area where a faux black bear hibernates a the end of a darkened tunnel through which little ones can crawl if they dare.

A more recent acquisition is the Time Machine, a monitor with a manual dial that allows viewers to speed up or slow down seamlessly looped film footage of anything from milk splashing out of a dropped glass to ferns sprouting up from a carpet of pine needles to a hummingbird nipping nectar from a blossom. Bolts of lightning or the seasonal burst of a bunchberry flower, which is known to open and catapult its pollen in less than a millisecond, can be examined at a freeze-frame pace and, likewise, slow-moving clouds and even baking cinnamon rolls can be sped up to dramatic effect.

The Montshire's more traditional attractions are no less thrilling, including the impossibly huge (taller than my 9-year-old) 135 million-year-old femur of an apatosaurus, which is displayed next to a similarly sobering 18-foot skin of an anaconda snake.

Another major draw is the Science Park just behind the Montshire, an outdoor museum in and of itself, with hands-on — and, during warm weather — bodies-in exhibits that use natural elements to teach kids about the movement of air, sound and water.

The Stone Xylophone is a row of giant stone beams with a cork mallet and the rich, resonant sound it produces gets some kids so involved, they end up with a cardio workout as well.

Nearby, the Matisse Musical Fence, built by none other than Paul Matisse, the grandson of renowned painter Henri Matisse, transforms 59 vertical aluminum pipes into a huge versatile instrument that inspires imagination as well as teamwork.

Farther down a winding path through a beautifully landscaped sloping garden, H20 becomes the focus, with the Water Rill, a 250-foot course that allows kids to make dams, float balls and check out water patterns. The Mist Fountain creates an umbrella of soft spray that produces rainbows when the light is right and just beyond that, at the base of a tiered series of wading pools, are the popular water bells that kids can adjust into different shapes and explore from within.

This place is a 362-days-a-year goldmine and in the summer months, when kids are thirsty for intellectual and social stimulation, the Science Park's outdoor activities, picnic tables and six hiking trails make it an especially exhilarating all-day outing.

I've brought friends visiting with their kids from culturally fertile places such as D.C., S.F. and Germany, and they all comment that they don't have anything like this where they live, so I count my lucky stars — particularly during the museum's terrific constellation lectures — that we have this in our own back yard.

The museum regularly offers talks and films on various subjects, along with camps and classes for kids, such as the Inventors' Workshop, Aquatic Investigations and Exploring Nature Through Art. There are adult courses, too, including one on native wildflowers starting tonight and going through the weekend.

The Montshire Museum, whose name come from the last syllables of both the states it serves, is a treasure trove of wonderment. Whether you're a wannabe physicist or just a parent looking for an affordable family adventure, plan a visit — and don't forget the swimsuits.

Online: www.montshire.org
Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com

Speaking out for art education's sake: Community goes to the mat and wins

"Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world."

— Leonardo da Vinci

It started out looking like any other school board meeting. Administrators, board members, a local reporter and a few parents were settling into chairs in a small classroom at the Bellows Falls Middle School on a quiet January weeknight. But on this particular evening, things started seeming out of the ordinary fairly quickly. The room began filling with more parents and community members than usual, excited chatter grew, administrators looked solemn and a couple of board members seemed tense.

The school janitor started bringing in more chairs and tables were nudged to make space for the growing crowd, with earnest tête-à-têtes, broad smiles and a lot of surprised expressions emerging around the room. Suddenly, someone announced that we were moving to the auditorium, which fueled the commotion further.

Me? I was positively giddy.

Word had traveled through the community earlier in the week that the School Board was poised to make cuts to art, music and physical education at the school that night, so a few of us had done our best to alert fellow parents, neighbors and art advocates with the hopes that a strong presence at the meeting might dissuade the School Board from making proposed reductions.

Though we knew these are hard times and budgets are thin, this is a community that prides itself on a thriving art scene, having built a widespread reputation as an eminent, vibrant epicenter of fine arts, music, literature and theater with wonderful venues, events and festivals that draw patrons from near and far.

Cutting art programs here would be like reducing computer classes in Silicon Valley or Little League in Boston. Art is part of the bedrock of this community, yet here we were facing the possibility of our own children having this crucial element of their education reduced.

I'd hoped for 20 attendees or so, 30 tops, but as people kept streaming down the aisles and into seats it became clear that this was no little flurry of artsy parental protest. The chair called the meeting to order and, as the board discussed other business on the agenda, I went to the back of the room and did a head count: A full 162 people were in attendance. Even better, a remarkable 60 of them had signed up to speak.

When our item came up on the agenda, speakers were asked to stand, state their name and say their piece. Parents, grandparents, teachers, former teachers, staff members, community members and business owners spoke with passion, eloquence and occasionally palpable disdain for the very notion of eroding the schools' art programs in a culturally rich community such as ours. Some told stories of students whose difficult home lives were assuaged by their immersion into art projects at school, while others insisted that if it weren't for music their child would never have discovered a remarkable talent.

At one point I recited a list of factoids that I thought might resonate with board members concerned about student performance in standardized testing. One report, from the College Entrance Examination Board, found that "students who studied art scored significantly higher than the national average on SATs" and that "visual arts education greatly contributes to reading persistence and organization as well as reasoning skills required for success in math and science."

The U.S. Dept. of Education also published "Schools, Communities and the Arts: A Research Compendium," which shows, according to more than 3,000 studies, "music education specifically fosters stronger spatial reasoning necessary for solving mathematical problems, creative scientific processes and developing general planning skills."

And, according to "Effects of Physical Education and Activity Levels on Academic Achievement in Children," published by the American College of Sports Medicine, "Numerous studies have shown positive relationships between academic achievement and both physical activity and sports participation." Though it might be assumed physical education simply means sports, it also includes creative movement and allows kids to explore dance in a way they might never be able to otherwise.

Far more powerful than any adults' stories or stats, however, were the students themselves. It was obvious that most had never spoken in front of such a large group, much less held a big microphone, but one by one, and sometimes in groups, they stood and spoke. One trio of girls read a poem they'd written based on John Lennon's "Imagine," about what their lives would be like with no art programs. Then a quiet boy explained that his coach had become an important mentor to him and that he couldn't make it through school without having gym class to look forward to.

Perhaps the most moving moment was when a shy, pale girl gingerly took the mic, her spiky pink hair falling into teary, heavily mascaraed eyes and choked that if it wasn't for band she wouldn't want to come to school at all and that music was her motivation for doing everything else.

In the end, enough members of the board heeded the heartfelt accounts of student engagement and success being intrinsically connected to art programs, and figured out how to avoid making cuts to art and music, though the physical education program was unfortunately reduced. It meant that the school's principal, Cheryl McDaniel-Thomas, was going to have to do some mighty creative budget management, but she was ready for the challenge and has been amazing us with her innovative vision and resourcefulness ever since.

This pragmatic ingenuity and commitment to creativity permeates the entire district staff and was on beautiful display recently when the Saxtons River Elementary School put on its spring concert. With the direction of music teacher Alissa Daigneault, beautiful sets painted by students with the guidance of art teacher Colleen Grout and inventive choreography by gym teacher Mary Lou Smith — who was named the 2007 Vermont Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year — the kids seemed to take everything that was said to the School Board that night in January and put it into colorful, expressive motion.

They played rousing tunes on recorder, performed complex dances, put on a death-defying jump rope display and sang delightful songs, including one that put the name of every state to the tune of "Turkey In the Straw." How's that for augmenting academics through art?

When I asked Smith her opinion on the value of the arts, she was enthusiastic and direct. "The arts give students the opportunity to be creative - a fast disappearing skill in this age of reliance on test scores. Often I will give students a piece of equipment and say 'Show me what you can do with this' and they come up with things I never would have thought of. When students are given the opportunity to think and explore on their own they come up with the most amazing ideas."

Art instructor extraordinaire Colleen Grout believes her curriculum manual, based on the National Standards for Arts Education, says it all. "Arts education benefits the student because it cultivates the whole child, gradually building many kinds of literacy while developing intuition, reasoning, imagination and dexterity into unique forms of expression and communication. An education in the arts benefits society because students of the arts gain powerful tools for understanding human experiences, past and present. They learn to respect the often very different ways others have of thinking, working and expressing themselves. They learn to make decisions in situations where there are no standard answers. By studying the arts, students stimulate their natural creativity and learn to develop it to meet the needs of a complex and competitive society. And, as study and competence in the arts reinforce one other, the joy of learning becomes real, tangible and powerful."

Amen.

To support arts education in Vermont, contact the Vermont Alliance For Arts Education at www.vaae.org.

Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com

Astute performances from future leaders: Volume of Our Voices puts humanity in the spotlight

On the wall behind my computer hangs a bulletin board that's layered with colorful flotsam and jetsam from the past few decades, including postcards from around the globe, a Scottish pound note, my Japanese I.D. card, a Zippy gem, photos of friends and sundry ticket stubs from concerts by The Who, The Stones, the Pretenders and Nada Surf.

In amongst this visual cacophony are buttons I've collected over the years, with slogans ranging from "ERA Yes" and "Iggy Pop Fan Club" to "Question Authority" and a cow thinking "No Nukes," along with a row of badges from SF AIDS Walks.

At the center of it all is a large, faded button that reads "Feminism Is Humanism."

Of everything tacked to my vertical scrapbook, this particular specimen holds the most meaning for me, perhaps because it's the first political anything I ever acquired, launching a lifetime of buttons, bumper stickers, activism and awareness.

I got it in 1978 when my dear friend Daphne and I went to our first N.O.W. rally, held on the Stanford campus across the street from our high school. I remember the intriguing phrase — "Feminism Is Humanism" — standing out from all the other buttons, T-shirts and signs, knowing that it captured my particular philosophy more accurately than anything else.

As readers here learned last year when I wrote about the Brattleboro Women's Film Festival, I'm not your average feminist. I'm the kind who thinks our collective might becomes far more abundant, effective and lasting when attained through more inclusive means, particularly when those means fit under the aegis of art.

Though it's often felt like swimming upstream, I still believe feminism is humanism and that we serve the greater good by welcoming everyone to the discussion, with no labels, monikers or categories that might risk dissuading potential supporters from becoming involved.

During this, the final weekend of Women's History Month, a group of diverse and multitalented students and faculty members at World Learning's SIT Graduate School in Brattleboro are sharing a stage in precisely that type of event.

On Friday and Saturday night, more than two dozen performers will express their views through song, movement and spoken word, in "Volume of Our Voices," an evening of creative expression on the topics of gender, identity and sexuality, benefiting the Women's Crisis Center in Brattleboro.

Original monologues, poems, dances, music and even martial arts will illustrate stories that are personal, if not intimate, yet universal in relevance to the larger human experience and the common societal messages that can misrepresent, misinform, isolate and stereotype different factions of society.

In speaking with a few of the students participating — all of whom are working toward master's degrees in SIT's renowned international education program — I was impressed by the breadth of their experiences and the unique challenges each will voice in their respective performances.

Jon Woods, an organization management candidate, will be exploring issues of race, belonging and disenfranchisement through poetry, song and the martial art known as Capoeira, a muscular type of competitive dance that originated in Angola and found larger cultural roots in Brazil centuries ago within the slave community.

Naming his piece, "If I Had Wings I Could Fly," after a line from the song "Regulate" by rappers Warren G. and Nate Dogg, Woods takes us on his journey from anguish to understanding with remarkable perspicuity and grace.

"The poem itself goes from despair, hopelessness and rage to being lost and then trying to find guidance as a black man," he explained. "It touches on the issue that in black culture there's a disconnection between parenthood and the next generation, a prevalence of no role models existing and having to look at historical references and not necessarily in your household, whether it's a book or music that you respond to."

Though Woods' personal and intellectual path has been paved by the work of legends such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and civil rights activist and scholar, W.E.B. Du Bois, he also absorbed profound life lessons much closer to home.

"I learned a lot from my father and his struggle in the corporate world," reflected Woods. "Being a black manager he had to deal with a lot of conflict, internal mainly, and the struggle to assimilate but also be himself."

"When I wrote my poem, I was having a really bad day," he confided. "I'm the only black man at SIT and that's fine because I'm used to white schools but sometimes I just want to talk to someone I can connect with on that.

"The way that Capoeira is incorporated is a release of energy; if you're angry sometimes the tension just needs to be released. It's a martial art that's powerful but you play it against yourself."

For Cole Kovac, who is working toward a master of art in teaching, an equally formidable frustration with society emerges in his monologue titled, "Pushing Boundaries: One Man's Reality," which challenges the widely accepted pejorative term that often pigeonholes people like him as having a "gender identity disorder."

As a person born female but who identifies male, Kovac investigates his own perspective from several compelling angles.

"The first part of the monologue is about the medical world's view of transgendered people," he explains. "The second half is about my story and feelings and struggles and why I'm on stage."

When I asked him about this latter question, he replied, "At this point I'm the only transgendered person on campus and I felt like my voice needed to be heard, especially since the performance isn't geared only towards women. And SIT is a very supportive community — it's a good place to be."

Conflict transformation major Rachel Unkovic possesses a similar wealth of wisdom, particularly having learned in her studies that peace-building is more productive than conflict management or resolution.

"It's the idea that conflict never goes away and that it can open the door to dialogue and new ideas," she asserted. "It can be changed from violence into something more productive."

In "Magic Mirror," which includes inventive vignettes such as "Sleeping Beau," Unkovic and classmates Scarlett Shaffer and Victoria Der use shadow puppets to retell classic fairy tales. "We explore old stories that we're all told growing up and the impact those messages have on kids. We're looking at the idea of gender roles and roles that you're forced to take."

That the show is a benefit for one of the region's most crucial social service organizations — providing shelter along with emotional, legal and crisis support for survivors of abuse — is all the more reason to come out and support these visionary young people who are working hard to create a future that is informed by expansive, global perspectives and a reverence for the power of the human spirit.

The Women's Crisis Center views these issues through a similarly humanistic lens, as evidenced in their thanks to SIT for donating proceeds from the show to their cause: "It takes a dynamic, unified force to address the war waged on the bodies of women and children every day in this community and all over the world. Women still live with the daily reality of physical and sexual violence, still live with the systems which protect them imperfectly, at best, and sometimes not at all. We both honor and rely on our allies in ending men's violence against women and children."

The unified force behind "Volume of Our Voices" exemplifies this inclusive approach to solving the global scourge of discrimination, disrespect and brutality. As Woods' commanding poem implores, "Let your voice be heard, preach the word, because no matter your gender or race, the struggle always continues."

Or, as Kovac puts it, with equal sagacity, "Our identities are always evolving."

Quirky collections and early eco-wisdom: Edifying exhibits are the perfect tonic

Coming back from the left coast would have been easier if another 8 feet of snow had arrived in our absence but somehow, returning to what must be about the fifth mud-season so far this year, was harder. I'm starting to think it's a meteorological fifth dimension, with a groovy theme to go with it (sing along, everyone): "When the mud, is all around the house, and furniture is lined with soil."

When mud is all around the house, the yard, the sidewalks and the state, my tendency each weekend is to find fun things to do in places that are, by definition, dirt-free, and what better destination than museums? As mentioned herein last week, Vermont is home to a constellation of intriguing creative institutions filled with far more than just fine art.

There's the American Precision Museum, the Birds of Vermont Museum, the Cornish Colony Museum, the New England Transportation Museum, the Shelburne Museum and even the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Rumor has it there even used to be a Vermont Wax Museum renowned for its revolving Elvis but, alas, he's left the turntable as the place is now closed. The mind boggles at what else might have been in there … a marble-eyed Hetty Green savoring her fortune or an ashen Ethan Allen being charged with treason?

The top of my unconventional museums list, however — the mother of all treasure troves — is the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury. Vermont's much-celebrated field-trip favorite boasts more than 160,000 natural science, historical and cultural objects that 19th-century industrialist Franklin Fairbanks collected during extensive travels around the globe. Overflowing with everything from Victorian dolls, Egyptian sarcophagi and rare gemstones to paintings, textiles, farm tools and taxidermy — not to mention a planetarium and weather station — the Fairbanks is an ideal place to take friends and family for a remarkably engaging day steeped in vicarious sightseeing and international geographic illumination.

Soaking up this diverse collection is tantamount to taking a slightly surreal jaunt to other continents, distant cultures and past eras, an experience both abundant and intimate, if not occasionally daunting. During my first visit a while back with my daughter's class to what looks from the outside like a Victorian castle, I entered the massive main room, with its barrel-vaulted oak ceiling, and was instantly transfixed by a startling tableau. Just through the main doors, a towering stuffed polar bear the size of a minivan rears up on his hind legs in frozen, bared-ivories rage, dwarfing a massive grizzly and two black bears nearby.

Taxidermy isn't everyone's cup of tea but there is something profoundly stirring, albeit a tad spine-chilling, about being able to examine such gorgeous, colossal creatures up-close and personal. Watching bears on the Discovery Channel or pacing inside far-off cages surrounded by cement moats affords a modicum of enlightenment, of course, yet this was the first time I'd ever been in such close proximity to a species that's universally feared and revered, and it gave me a whole new perspective on their plight.

When I spoke to the Fairbanks Museum's Anna Rubin, she revealed that my reaction was not uncommon and also offered crucial and informative insights into the singular passion and purpose of Mr. Fairbanks who, I gathered, was something of an amateur Darwin of his milieu.

"The practice of collecting natural specimens in the late 1800s was not perceived in the same way we might look at it today," she explained. "It was really in the cause of science and wanting to preserve these animals so they could be studied and protected. All the pieces in the museum are from that era."

Before establishing the museum in 1891, he regularly invited the public into his home to see his "cabinet of curiosity" in which he displayed his eclectic collection, which contains items of international, national and regional interest. One of my favorite displays was on the second-floor balcony, which is brimming with shelves, cabinets and cases of antique dolls, vintage toys and various household and historical artifacts.

Inside a low vitrine is a group of personal possessions dating from the Civil War. I was particularly moved by a small, lovingly handmade sewing kit, given by a local 15-year-old girl to her sweetheart before he left to fight. One can only assume it was found out on a battleground, and the inclusion of that kind of human iconography in the context of a museum containing more than 3,000 natural specimens reflects Fairbanks' holistic view of the world and its inhabitants.

Fairbanks would come back from his trips with assorted pelts, weapons, insects, photographs, costumes, shells and other discoveries that could help to edify his friends and colleagues back in Vermont. Having inherited great wealth from his uncle, who invented the platform scale and founded the Fairbanks Scale Co., Franklin Fairbanks was committed to giving back to his hometown and integrated his own zeal for travel into this impulse.

"He was like many Victorian civic-minded family members who felt a real love for the community," said Rubin. "He wasn't a scientist or scholar but out of a deep appreciation for nature, he brought to this isolated part of New England these views of animals and visions of other parts of the world."

Working with local, self-taught taxidermist William Balch, Fairbanks eventually built a museum to house his finds, an eccentric landscape unto itself, filled with recreations of the flora and fauna that he'd come to cherish in places he knew most of his friends, family and neighbors would never see.

Balch proved to be an innovator in exhibit design as well, crafting lush, convincing dioramas in which he placed the exotic creatures he'd carefully preserved, deftly utilizing materials of the day, such as linen (this was long before plastic's time) to create the illusion of natural habitats. With the same scientific authenticity and remarkable eye for detail that was being employed in New York City's Natural History Museum right around the same time, Balch was, as Rubin reverently put it, "at the cutting edge of interpreting the natural world."

Together, the two men filled custom-made wood-and-glass cases with meticulously arranged environments, including a truly exquisite display of what is thought to be the world's largest collection of hummingbirds. With 131 shimmering specimens presented on realistic-looking trees, replete with nests, under glass at eye-level, it is yet another of the museum's many breathtaking exhibits.

Everyone at the museum clearly venerates Mr. Fairbanks' pioneering sensibilities and generosity of spirit, and with good reason. Though through our 21st-century lens we might consider a room full of posed animals in ersatz environs to be tacitly un-P.C., everything Rubin taught me about Fairbanks' motivations and expansive thinking as a true animal lover convinced me that, were he alive today, he'd probably be out there picketing for PETA and holding fund-raisers for Greenpeace.

The entire collection of the Fairbanks Museum is a manifestation of its founder's global sensibilities, which were evident in his respect for cultural diversity, an abiding love of nature and a staunch devotion to the stewardship of all the world's creatures. It is sobering and inspiring to realize that his visionary achievements pre-saged the very issues with which the human race now struggles, on so many fronts.

Eloquently summing up the magnitude of Fairbanks' accomplishments, Rubin said it best: "The museum is a timepiece, about the Victorian understanding of the natural world and the awesome beauty of these creatures."

Online: www.fairbanksmuseum.org

Elementary school undergoes an extreme makeover

With a striking state-of-the-art, two-story addition having doubled the square footage of its stately 1915, original brick saltbox home, the Saxtons River Elementary School is throwing a rebirthday party to celebrate and everyone's invited.

Tonight, from 6-8 p.m., the school is proudly opening its beautiful new cherry stained doors to the community in honor of a major renovation that has improved the school from top to bottom and greatly expanded it side-to-side as well.

There will be scrumptious food provided by Harvest Moon catering, live Americana music by Donald Saaf & Friends and a book fair hosted by Village Square Booksellers, though the main attraction is the exquisite building itself.

Be warned, however. You'll probably want to move in once you've seen it.