LEWISTON — Museum L-A announced the popular Kids as Curators program will present a youth exhibit with the community.

Kids as Curators is a collaborative effort between Museum L-A and eighth-grade team teachers at Auburn Middle School, who are guiding their students in the preparation of an exhibit titled “Ordinary Objects — Extraordinary Stories.”

There will be an opening reception with free admission from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 16, in Gallery 1 at Museum L-A in the Bates Mill Complex at 35 Canal St. The exhibit will run through Friday, June 10.

In developing plans to create their own exhibit, over 80 students toured the museum and learned how museums research, design and install exhibits.

The students were given guidelines to help them understand how their exhibit fits into Museum L-A’s mission of connecting generations, strengthening community and fostering creativity, discovery and innovative thinking.

They collected artifacts from their own family histories, interviewed parents and grandparents about special memories and researched local and national history. They wrote narratives from three points of view along with essays, made label copies, created multimedia presentations and designed the exhibit. They will serve as tour guides for these special artifacts and memories.

Major themes chosen for the exhibition by students are: Auburn Warriors — Military; Gone But Not Forgotten; Family Heirlooms; Golden Days of Jewelry; Toy Stories; Strange Objects; Sports Diversity; Careers and Jobs; Where in the World — Souvenirs; Collectibles; Culture; and Art through Drawings and Depression.

Diana Carson, English language arts teacher on Team Sugarloaf, organized the yearlong project.

Students have painted the museum’s exhibit walls in preparation for their installation and formed team groups to exhibit their thematic topics.

“Students learned more about their family’s history through this project than anything else we did this year. We had students find out that their grandfathers had earned Purple Hearts, one student discovered that his mother was a country music award winner in her ‘previous life,’ and we all learned that there are stories behind the knickknacks that surround us every day,” explained teacher Diana Carson.

Kids as Curators is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission.

FMI: 207-333-3881, www.museumla.org, [email protected].