Awards and Recognition

EdCom Award for Innovation in Museum Education

2023 AAM Awards Update: To better highlight and celebrate the museum professional community in all its diversity, we are in the process of redesigning an awards program that aligns with AAM’s strategic framework and centers equity and inclusion. As part of this process, this award program is temporarily on hold while we pilot a few updates to three other awards programs in 2023.

Please note for 2021 EdCom will be only offering the EdCom Award for Innovation and Education–Pandemic Edition.

This award recognizes, encourages, and celebrates innovation in museum education. The award will go to either an individual or team in conjunction with a program, resource, or media piece, and could include a museum program done outside the museum walls, in the community. We define innovation as a new technology, practice, or methodology, or repurposing of an old or existing method or practice. Programs/projects should clearly address one or more of the challenges cited in the Center for the Future of Museums’ “Building the Future of Education: Museums and the Learning Ecosystem” and/or respond to broad trends in education and museum education (either in the P-12 world or learning for adults and seniors).

Nominations are now closed.

There is a $25 fee for each entry. This fee goes towards the production of the awards and towards paying for one ticket for the Excellence in Practice Award winner to the EdCom Luncheon where the awards are given out at the AAM Annual Meeting. Your nomination will not be considered complete until the fee has been paid. To pay the fee, visit http://ww2.aam-us.org/about-us/grants-awards-and-competitions/innovation-in-museum-education/application-fee
This link will reappear after you submit the nomination form below.

All EdCom Award Recipients receive the following recognition:

  • Honored at the AAM Annual Meeting
  • Awardees are featured in the Annual Award Issue of AAM’s Museum Magazine
  • Awardees receive recognition in EdCom’s e-newsletter
  • Awardees may be featured in a future national webinar or article on best practices in museum education
  • All awardees receive an award, perfect for display in the most public of spaces
  • Awardees may be featured in a “Best Practices in Museum Education” Panel at the AAM Annual Meeting
  • Featured on AAM’s blog/website

Questions? (no award submissions please) Please contact Brooke Rosenblatt, EdCom Awards Lead (rosenblattb (a) si (dot) edu).

Recipients

2021

Small Museum Category

Mid-sized Museum Category

Large Museum Category (tie)

2020

2019

  • Vizcaya Museum and Gardens for The Urban Farming School Program

And

  • Shiloh Museum of Ozark History for Wa Kuk Wa Jimor: Canoe of One Community

2018

  • Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Illinois for SPACE (School Partnership for Art and Civic Engagement)

2017

  • Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Philadelphia, PA for Returning Citizens Tour Guide Project

2016

  • Accokeek Foundation, Accokeek, MD for Eco-Explorers: Colonial Time Warp

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