Yawkey Foundation Awards $75,000 to Kick Off Discovery Museum’s Multilingual Materials Translation Program

Funds will support 2022 translation and printing of materials for schools and visitors, including special needs audiences

Acton, MA – Discovery Museum announced today a $75,000 grant from Yawkey Foundation to launch the Museum’s work to translate a significant number of educational and access materials across its school and family programs into multiple languages, to better welcome and serve a diverse audience.

“Yawkey Foundation recognizes that delivering educational and access support materials in the languages that families speak at home is an essential step in our work to expand access to the Museum’s learning experiences and resources,” said Discovery Museum CEO Neil Gordon. “Ten percent of Massachusetts schoolchildren are English Language Learners, with a language other than English spoken in their homes. That’s more than 95,000 kids—plus their families—that the Foundation is helping us reach. Yawkey Foundation’s longstanding support of children and families and belief in the Museum’s impact will jump-start our work to make educational materials, parent information, at-home STEAM activities, and more available in the languages most represented in the 300 cities and towns we serve.”

Materials to be translated include pre- and post-workshop student activity guides for the Museum’s in-school STEM programs; museum exhibit guides, sensory guides for children with special needs, field trip chaperone materials, and at-home STEAM activity resources for families. Different content pieces will be translated into languages most impactful for their reach, including Haitian Creole, Khmer, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese (Traditional).  The Museum’s website, already equipped with Google Translate functionality, is being enhanced to allow visitors to select their desired language for downloadable materials.

About Discovery Museum
Discovery Museum is a hands-on museum that blends science, nature, and play, inspiring families to explore and learn together. The museum and its Discovery Woods accessible outdoor nature playscape and 550sf treehouse blend the best of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) learning on a beautiful 4.5-acre campus abutting 180 acres of conservation land in Acton, MA, about 20 miles west of Boston. Originally founded in 1982 and expanded to two museums in 1987, the museum reopened in a single, 16,000sf accessible building after a complete renovation and expansion in early 2018. Hands-on, open-ended exhibits developed by professional educators inspire curiosity and exploration, providing a fun and engaging experience for children and adults to discover their world together. Serving families and schools from towns throughout the region, the museum is devoted to informal education that enhances classroom learning. Discovery Museum is committed to accessibility and is a proud recipient of the 2017 Massachusetts Commonwealth Award, the only winner in the Access category, and a 2018 LEAD® Community Asset Award from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. For more information, please visit www.discoveryacton.org. Discovery Museum is a community-supported non-profit organization. Discovery Museum programming is supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

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