AMA Celebrates Recipients of the 2020 Leadership Awards

Leadership Award for Engagement

Harpreet Dhanjal

Congratulations to Harpreet Dhanjal, the recipient of the AMA’s 2020 Leadership Award for Engagement! This Award recognizes Harpreet's commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion in her role as Public Programmer at Calgary’s TELUS Spark. 

Harpreet is passionate about making the cultural sector more welcoming and inclusive. “It’s because I never saw myself here,” she says, “that community engagement and equity work is such an important part of my practice.” 

Watch Harpreet's acceptance video below: 

Never one to ignore or let slip an opportunity to advocate for those who are underrepresented, Harpreet is exceptional in her ability to engage diverse community members with culture. She carefully designs visitor experiences that are relevant, narrative driven, modern, and occasionally provocative, such as the Adults Only Night program titled He, Her, They, Everyone, and You (A.K.A. Beyond the Binary), a program that celebrated gender diversity while educating visitors on the intersection of sexuality, gender, identity, science, history, and art.

When developing programming, Harpreet involves experts who represent a range of identities and perspectives. Fearless in engaging new community partners, Harpreet has created programs that bring together research academics, drag performers, and rocket scientists. She has positioned TELUS Spark as a trusted ally and sought the expertise and collaboration of LGBTQ2S+ community partners. 

Passionate about making the cultural sector more welcoming and inclusive, Harpreet always prioritizes equity, diversity, and community engagement in her work. Harpreet crafts meaningful visitor experiences that provoke curiosity, reflection, discussion, and interaction, creating brave spaces for anyone and everyone to learn, play, and engage.  

A dedicated advocate and ally for underrepresented communities, and a champion for diversity and inclusion across the museum sector, Harpreet exemplifies the leading role museums have as agents of social responsibility. 

Congratulations, Harpreet!

Leadership Award for Education

TELUS World of Science - Edmonton

Congratulations to TELUS World of Science – Edmonton (TWOSE), the recipient of the AMA’s 2020 Leadership Award for Education! This Award recognizes TWOSE’s work in creating safe and supportive spaces for science learning for girls and women.

An all-female team worked across departments to tailor programming at TWOSE to individuals that identify as women in order to address gender gaps and improve accessibility in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning. The team set out to create a climate of support and change for women at all stages of their science careers.

Watch TELUS World of Science's acceptance video below:

The five distinct programs making up Women and Girls in STEM focus on addressing the issues that prevent women and girls from pursuing careers in science. Presenting material in an environment that is supportive of girls and women, the programs aim to increase confidence to pursue STEM careers, decrease gender stereotyping by providing a positive space for girls to interact with professional female role models in STEM fields, and improve positive peer influence by creating safe spaces to explore STEM topics and to learn new skills in the TELUS World of Science – Edmonton makerspace.

Designed to support girls aged ten to adults, the Women and Girls in STEM programs promote ongoing learning at critical ages where women and girls tend to lose interest in STEM. Not only do the programs provide an opportunity for girls to interact with like-minded peers, they also foster a support network of confident female STEM researchers.

These educational programs are engaging future and current female researchers’ hearts and minds in science. In empowering women and girls, TWOSE is a role model to their peers and colleagues of the importance of museums as agents of social change.

Congratulations, TELUS World of Science – Edmonton!

Chartering New Territory Using the Theory of Flight

For over two decades, the Alberta Aviation Museum (AAM)’s most popular program has been Theory of Flight (TOF). It’s the museum’s longest running and only formal education program based on the Alberta Grade 6 curriculum. It was originally developed and continues to be largely facilitated by volunteers. The program has grown so much in popularity that most years it has been booked solid. Its success is evident by the number of visiting youth and young adults who remember and mention their TOF field trip. 

Despite the program’s continuing success, a major update was long overdue. While there were attempts to update TOF, including the addition of flight simulators two years ago, mixed reviews for the simulators made it clear that we couldn’t continue to make only minor updates to TOF. We needed to completely rethink our education program.

There were several factors that made the existing TOF program unsustainable, as it did not meet all teachers’ needs and was difficult to facilitate. The existing program was too densely packed with content that was specific to only a few units of one grade level. It was also too long, and lecture-based.

Our goals for the redevelopment were to make the program:

• Interactive;
• Flexible to better meet the needs of individual classes;
• More diverse in curriculum content; and 
• Structured to expand for more grades.