Throughout 2019, the Museum’s education team has been busier than ever before - hosting 115 classes and creating unique experiences for 1,574 Island schoolchildren. Cornerstone classes on topics like lighthouses and Grey's Raid are now fully integrated into the public schools' curricula. Our educators are also getting more creative as we settle into the new campus, responding to requests from the high school’s English Language Learner program and Theater Department, Smith College and the Tisbury School. The Museum is now able to create meaningful connections for students by allowing them to touch the past and play in the present, in the hopes that they will shape a vibrant future. Having a classroom in the Museum is a game changer for our Education Program. In the past our educators had to go out to the schools to teach a class, limited by what they could bring with them. Now students come to us and the galleries themselves have become centers for learning and youth engagement. Imagine how learning can truly come alive when a lesson about prisms includes standing in front of the fully restored 1854 Fresnel Lens! Or when a lesson on habitat change includes kneeling down and looking into the eyes of an actual heath hen! We look forward to continuing to build partnerships around the Island to ensure that every child on Martha’s Vineyard has a chance to visit the Museum with multiple times with both their schools and with their families.