Every year on May 18, the State Polytechnic Museum named after Borys Paton at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute celebrates the International Museum Day. This holiday was founded in 1977 by the International Council of Museums and now plays an important role in shaping the historical memory of the people and their national identity.
The Borys Paton State Museum of History at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute is not just a museum. In fact, it is a multifunctional and socio-cultural mechanism aimed at preserving the history of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, demonstrating rare exhibits that clearly illustrate the stages of development of national science and technology and their various branches - instrumentation, radio engineering, telecommunications, computer science, mechanical engineering, aviation and astronautics. In addition, the museum carries out significant scientific and educational activities.
Director of the Borys Paton State Museum Natalia Pysarevska emphasizes: "Our museum is not just our job, but a part of our life! For 25 years of its work, the State Polytechnic Museum has been developing, improving expositions and looking for new forms of work. Every year the museum of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute celebrates its professional holiday and welcomes guests. I would like to note that the number of our visitors has exceeded 1 million people."
This year, for the International Museum Day, the URM prepared not one, but several exhibitions: "The Planet Takes a Selfie" - from fantasy to reality; "The Universe. Ukrainian Dimension", a joint project of the Borys Paton State Museum of Fine Arts and museums of Ukraine (the first stage - Luhansk Regional Museum of Local Lore, outdoor exhibition "Space Luhansk Region"); "Space Known and Unknown" - a joint online book exhibition from the collection of the Astronomical Museum of Taras Shevchenko National University.
Students of grades 2-3 of the Kyianochka Educational Complex were invited to the celebration. The children had the opportunity to learn about the history of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, walked through the halls of the museum's exposition and tried to count on a mechanical abacus. The Department of Aviation and Astronautics History offered to sit in a real space capsule and in a Yak-40 airplane, which is installed next to the museum. At the end of the excursion, quizzes were held "Known facts about the lives of KPI scientists: Igor Sikorsky, Serhiy Korolyov, Borys Paton, Konstantin Antonov".
It is interesting that most of the children live on Igor Sikorsky Street, so during their visit to the museum, a lively dialog about this genius of aircraft construction took place.
The museum holiday coincided with the World Embroidery Day. Children, employees, and other visitors were dressed in the national clothes of Ukraine.
It can be stated that the museum pedagogy of the Borys Paton Kyiv Polytechnic actively contributes to the education of children and youth, the formation of new thinking, increases motivation for learning activities, which is in line with the trends of modern education. This is also evidenced by statistics: on the International Day of Museums, the Borys Paton State Museum was visited by more than 430 people, half of whom were schoolchildren and students.