May 15, 2026

Author: Caitlin Reilly, Community Engagement Coordinator at the Community Science Initiative

If you’ve been to a family day at the Museum, you have likely participated in Ready, Set, Resilience programming. Perhaps you’ve seen the large, papier-mâché puppets on parade, a shadow puppet show, or coloring pages about marine life. These and other projects are part of a multi-year collaboration focused on building community and resilience in the face of changing environments and ecosystems.

Starting in 2024, the Community Science Initiative at Duke University and the Museum of Life and Science partnered on a project that highlights connections between personal, ecological, and community resilience. The project centers around Ready, Set, Resilience, a middle school curriculum hosted through a collaboration between Duke and NC State University that helps kids learn about resilience in themselves and their communities by using nature as a model. The curriculum helps middle school teachers from across North Carolina integrate resilience concepts and arts-based learning into standards-aligned content that covers all subject areas.

Together, Community Science Initiative and Museum of Life and Science staff dreamed up an event that would emphasize what students in Ready, Set, Resilience classrooms had learned about themselves, their communities, and the environment.

In March 2025, the Museum hosted a community day in collaboration with Ready, Set, Resilience. The day featured original live shadow puppet performances by students, a marine debris art display, a poetry creation table with original student poems as inspiration, make and take craft stations highlighting student art, and a professional shadow puppet performance led by Duke puppetry professor Torry Bend.

The students’ work represented classrooms from school districts across North Carolina. Hosting this community event at the Museum gave middle school students and their teachers an opportunity to shine as they showed off their hard work from the school year and connect with audiences beyond their typical school setting.

“Working with community partners to share student work is wonderful,” said Liz DeMattia, Director of Community Science Initiative at Duke University. “Students can see their work outside of school, and community members can see and hear from local kids. What better way to connect to kids and local schools!”

After a successful first year, the collaboration has grown.

In March 2026, Ready, Set, Resilience hosted two days of interactive programing at the Museum of Life and Science. In addition, during Durham’s Creek Week the Museum became home to a temporary exhibit of middle school student work inspired by the Ready, Set, Resilience curriculum. The exhibit featured work from middle school classrooms spanning North Carolina from the coast to the mountains. The community days included live shadow puppet performances, make and take craft stations, and even a puppet parade featuring animal and plant characters from Bend in the Wind, the collection of resilience fables included in the Ready, Set, Resilience curriculum.

“We love working with the Museum of Life and Science,” DeMattia added. “Their community events bring in so many families from across the region, and it is an amazing way for Duke and NC State students to connect with the professional educators at the Museum and also the amazing families that visit the Museum.”

In addition to highlighting students’ work, the Ready, Set, Resilience collaboration with the Museum also features efforts from Duke students enrolled in the Fostering Climate Resilience through Education and Arts service-learning course. The course is part of Duke’s Bass Connections program, which connects college students to hands-on, real-world learning opportunities in the Durham community and around the globe. Students in the course support middle school teachers through classroom visits and help to plan and execute community events at the Museum.

The partnership between Ready, Set, Resilience and the Museum of Life and Science has brought together different parts of the Durham community and helped uplift the daily work of teachers and students from across North Carolina. Whether they’re eighth graders or college sophomores, when students extend their learning beyond the classroom and engage with their communities, it deepens the scope and impact of their work.