Seminole County's Student Museum

As part of the Intro to Teaching course I'm taking at Seminole State College of Florida I had to take a trip to Seminole County's Student Museum. The Student Museum is located at 301 E. 7th Street in the Historic District of Sanford. The building is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places and used as and educational center, thus making it a good place for a future teacher to visit. I visited the museum/school on a Monday (3/29/10) for a guided tour of the building. The tour was given by Museum Specialist Judy Wiant who was great, very informative and sweet.

The museum was built in 1902 and is designed in a Romanesque style, much like some of the churches in the area and it also included a bell tower. The museum was originally opened as Sanford High School with a total of four students (all female) being its first graduating class. Since most of the boys and young men were working in the celery fields, fishing, and on the steamboats the majority of students at the time were female. In 1911 a new high school was built (Seminole High School) they renamed the building Sanford Grammar School. In 1916 due to grown in number of students the East and West wings were added to house female and male students on opposite sides of the school. The building went by that name until 1984, then being changed to its current name the Student Museum and Center for Social Studies. Also, in 1998 the museum gardens were planted, with different kinds of edible plants such as squash and corn, as well as floral gardens.

The tour consisted of the main building from 1902 and it houses the lobby, museum offices, conference room, and archives storage. The main four rooms are the Pioneer Room, with a replica of a log cabin with chimney which would've been prominent in Florida around the 1880's, and the Native American Room with replicas of what a Timucuan village would've looked like around the 1500's complete with ambient sounds and murals painted around the room. The Turn of the Century Classroom was one of my favorite rooms in the museum. The classroom depicts what one of the classrooms had looked like during 1902 when the museums first opened its doors. My five yr. old daughter went with me on this tour and she enjoyed the classroom very much, especially being able to sit in the desks and look at the teacher's desk and old-fashioned typewriter. The last room in the main building would be the American Ingenuity Room which isn't supposed to be part of the tour since they don't have a program set for the room as of yet. But there are some interesting things within the room such as turn of the century cameras, a printing press, model of the history of space travel/aviation and an array of retro advertisements. Then on to the East Wing which included the Geography Room and my second favorite room, Grandma's Attic. The room holds quite the collection of household items such as a fridge from the 1940's/1950's, an original icebox, coal irons, wooden iron stove, vintage clothing, dip candle station and many rare and unique toys such as a Jacob's Ladder. My daughter having to go use the restroom, I was able to see the West wing which include seminar and staff resource rooms. There were many great vintage pictures of students, local churches, parks, the steamboat harbor, and New Tribes Mission which used to be quite a beautiful hotel back in the 1900's.

I throughly enjoyed the tour of the museum so much that I visited twice. I think that what they're doing is wonderful combining history and heritage with interactive rooms and activities. I believe that the museum's motto fits incredibly well with what they're trying to accomplish...

Tell me and I forget.

Show me and I remember.

Involve me and I understand.