Rockford — Charlotte Olman careened through the winding pathways in the conservatory at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, excitedly taking in the holiday displays all around her as part of the Christmas & Holiday Traditions exhibition.
Then she saw something she recognized, and she just had to share it with her group. She stopped, whirled around, extended an arm, pointed a finger and shouted, “Poinsettias!” through a beaming smile.
Charlotte was one of about 30 Roguewood Elementary second-graders who visited the gardens recently to view the exhibition, which is a 30-year partnership between FMG and University of Michigan Health-West.
The exhibition — a celebration of holiday traditions the world over — includes trees decorated in the styles of Germany, Iceland, Switzerland and more, as well as light displays, information booths and interactive educational activities spotlighting different cultures.
‘We talk a lot about how (other cultures) are more similar to us than they are different, and how we all can connect even though we’re not in the same place.’
— second-grade teacher Katlyn Sayers
The Christmas & Holiday Traditions exhibition continues through Jan. 5.
As excited as Charlotte was to see and correctly identify the poinsettias, she said her favorite part of the class excursion was “all the trees.”
Iceland’s red-and-white tree stood out the most, she said, “because there’s little ribbon things that look like candy.”
Connections to Curriculum
“Our educational goal is to support students to identify common themes and ways of celebrating that occur across traditions,” said FMG’s School Program Manager Beth Rice-Graham.
As students made their way through the complex, they completed worksheets on which they recorded information about the celebrations of different cultures as part of their social studies curriculum, said second-grade teacher Katlyn Sayers.
“We do the exploring of traditions around the world, and we incorporate all of that in our social studies block,” Sayers said. “Each day we have a different country that we study … and then we bring them here to hopefully kind of build on that prior knowledge and actually see the trees and see those things from other countries.”
Sayers said she hopes the exhibition helps instill in students an appreciation for what makes different cultures unique as well as what unites them.
“We talk a lot about how (other cultures) are more similar to us than they are different, and how we all can connect even though we’re not in the same place,” she said. “Overall, I just hope that they learn more about the world.”
She added that the field trip, which Roguewood has been participating in for years, offers a chance to visit FMG for students who might not otherwise have that opportunity. Such was the case with Garrett Roosa, who was exploring the gardens with his friend Henry Masters.
“I always go past it, but I never stop here,” Garrett said, adding that he was excited about his first visit.
His favorite display? “The room with the trains,” he said, referring to the Railway Garden.
Bringing it to Life
In the Gardens’ lower level, Learning Lab sessions explored both the diversity of worldwide holiday celebrations and themes like food, music, lights and games, which in some form or fashion are common in festivities all over the globe.
Instructors also asked students to draw and explain some of their own family traditions.
“It looks like a mountain,” Harrison Kline said of the Christmas tree he drew, “but I guess it’s pretty good.”
Second-grade teacher Eric Nephew said FMG does an “excellent job of providing some hands-on learning opportunities,” where students can learn about and contextualize traditions they may not have prior experience with.
“Dreidel, for example. Instruments, bells and gongs that might be used to celebrate Lunar New Year. They talk about Diwali and show them sand sculptures,” he said. “(It’s) just an opportunity for them to bring it to life a little bit more — out of our imagination and into the realm of reality.”
Rice-Graham said the Christmas & Holiday Traditions exhibition has grown from a display of 20 trees in 1995 to a facility-wide undertaking that now includes 42 displays.
The exhibition also changes each holiday season as new displays are added. Also new this year is an opportunity for schools to design their own experiences, with freedom to explore all corners of the gardens.
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