The Anchorage Museum of History and Art, working with the Calista Elders Council, will develop a 5,000 sq ft traveling exhibition presenting 19th-century Yup'ik Eskimo technologies, their contemporary applications, and the underlying scientific processes. Featuring Yup'ik artifacts, it will integrate indigenous knowledge into the teaching of basic science principles as well as demonstrate the role played by science in everyday life. The exhibition will be organized around seasonal activities practiced in the past and retaining modern relevance. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will develop the comparative exhibits on modern science and technology, and the Imaginarium will develop complementary educational programming. Primary audiences will include rural Alaska Natives, both youth and elders, non-Native Alaska residents and visitors, as well as venues outside Alaska. By demonstrating how indigenous knowledge can be related to modern science, this exhibition provides a model for the informal science education field on how to incorporate cultural aspects of their own communities into museum exhibitions and programs. In addition, it demonstrates how artifacts and hands-on science activities can be combined effectively to create engaging educational experiences.
In fall of 1995, the Denver Museum of Natural History (DMNH) will open the Prehistoric Life Exhibits in 17,000 square feet of new exhibition space. The exhibits will be part of an on-going renaissance in paleontology at DMNH that includes research, educational programming, teacher training, and collections management. Visitors will walk through a series of nine life-size, open, prehistoric habitat dioramas -- "enviroramas"-- representing principally regional sites that feature critical events in 3.5 billion-year history of life on Earth. An extension of the Museum's tradition of diorama excellence, the enviroramas will immerse visitors in a multisensory journey, underscoring the message that vast amounts of both time and change have occurred since life began on Earth. Focus area exhibits adjacent to each envirorama will invite visitors to examine fossil evidence and scientific processes. Layered presentations will enable visitors to discover, explore, and study according to their level of interest. Excellent specimens, interpretive exhibitry and hands-on components will allow visitors to gain awareness of past patterns of environmental change and to develop literacy about and appreciation for how science and technology contribute to interpreting the fossil record. A comprehensive evaluation program will ensure that focus area exhibits are effective and provide visitors with "new eyes" for viewing the enviroramas. During exhibit construction, visitors will be able to watch from the viewing area of a state-of-the-art fossil preparation laboratory, completed in l990, as preparators rearticulate the skeletons of Diplodocus, Stegosaurus and other fossils. As part of their Prehistoric Life Exhibits experience, visitors will be able to witness on-going science activities in the laboratory. The National Science Foundation is requested to contribute $1 million over three years toward the $5.3 million Prehistoric Life Exhibits project. The exhibition and associated programming will be a major cultural and educational resource for the Rocky Mountain region , potentially reaching a diverse audience of well over a million Museum visitors and program participants annually.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brian McLarenRichard StuckyMerry DooleyAlan Espenlaub
Anchorage Museum of History and Art will used this planning award to develop the script, identify artifacts, and do other preliminary planning activities for and exhibit "Lifting the Fog: Exploration of the North Pacific, 1728 - 1867." The exhibit will be a 5000 to 6000 sq. ft. presentation that will give visitors insights into the scientific discoveries made in the North Pacific during the Russian era of dominance of this area. These Russian lead voyages, which included individuals from a number of European countries, made major findings in biology, hydrography, marine science and technology, geography and cartography, and ethnography. With this planning grant, they will bring together a group of museum professionals representing a diversity of approaches including hands-on science museums, scientists, and historian of science, formal educators, native Alaskans, and an evaluator to refine the plans. Project staff will draft the concept design, draft the label text, develop the specifications for the exhibit design, and develop the catalogue, among other activities. At the end of the twelve month planing period they will have refined their exhibit theme, developed their floor plan and concept design, developed plans for the interactive and hands-on activities, developed the interpretative labels and laid plans for the complementary activities including the catalogue, a curriculum plan, and other adjunct activities such as workshops demonstrating how scientific investigation was carried out in the 19th century.
The Museum of the Rockies will plan an exhibit "The Rockies Rise Again." When completed, this exhibit will illustrate evolving Cenozoic landscapes and life forms as understood through research conducted by the museum's staff in the Northern Rocky Mountain region. This exhibit will provide the natural historical context for visitors as they explore the cultural history exhibits that will follow this section. Together, the Museum's exhibits will illustrate the theme "One Place Through All of Time." With this award they will engage in a series of planning activities will include a front-end evaluation study of the public's knowledge and interest in this subject, consultation with expert advisors, review of related Cenozoic exhibits in selected natural history museums, and a two-day symposium which will include a dialogue about the exhibit concepts between the scientists and the public to help complete the plan. They will also hire an educator to develop an educational plan that will link the exhibit with the needs of teachers and will address national and state science standards. Special attention will be given to developing materials and dissemination strategies that will serve educators in this largely rural setting. At the end of the twelve month planing period they will have a completed exhibit and education plan and will be able to move forward with the exhibit.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Bonnie Sachatello-SawyerChristopher Hill
The Anchorage Museum of History and Art will develop "Lifting the Fog: Russian Exploration in the North Pacific, 1728-1867." This exhibition will reveal the world of the naturalists, oceanographers, astronomers, cartographers, ethnographers and artists who first described the west coast of America and the northern Pacific Ocean to the world. Approximately 200,000 visitors to the museum will view the 5,300-sq. ft. exhibition. Public programs will complement the exhibition, including a family day, lecture series by marine biologists, living history programs, weekend workshops, and an international symposium. An illustrated catalog with interpretive essays and a school curriculum and teachers' guide will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition will travel to three additional venues in the United States.
In this article, Paul Katz, Ph.D., Curator of the Texas Pharmacy Museum and partner in the PRIAM consulting firm, discusses the development of the "Playas...Gems of the Plains" traveling exhibit, produced by the Panhandle Museum Resource Sharing Consortium and later the Northwest Texas Museum Association. Katz describes the rationale behind the exhibit, its components, its uniqueness as a traveling exhibit, and evaluation findings.
In 2010 the Royal Society journal Biology Letters published an article, ‘Blackawton bees’, which caused something of a sensation: the findings, on bees’ foraging patterns, were original, but the true originality lay in the fact the experiments were in part devised, and the paper written, by a group of 8- to 10-year-old children at Blackawton Primary School in Devon (Blackawton et al., 2011).[1] The article attracted considerable media attention, troubling, as it did, the boundaries of professional science, and distinctions between scientific practice and education, not to mention the
Increasing numbers of museums and galleries worldwide have developed an array of working practices that might be termed 'participatory' or 'co-creative', which seek to involve visitors, non-visitors, community and interest groups with diverse forms of expertise and perspective in their activities. Frequently the central aim of such practices has been to strengthen relationships between a museum and its audiences through projects that are jointly conceived and developed with local communities. However, relatively little attention has been given to participatory practice within the work of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katy BunningJen KavanaghKayte McSweeneyRichard Sandell
This paper examines the approach of a major new gallery on information and communication technologies in the Science Museum, situating it in the context of current ideas around the history of technology and exploring the way the curatorial team addressed the challenges of display and interpretation. As a short discussion piece it looks at four broad questions: How has the concept of information, and more importantly an ‘Information Age’ been conceived across differing disciplines? What opportunities can user focused histories present to a gallery on information and communication technologies
When exchange telephony was first marketed to the British public by the early telephone companies in the late nineteenth century it was as an intuitive technology requiring no specialist knowledge or training. This has gone unquestioned in subsequent telephone historiography but, as this article demonstrates, telephone instruments and systems were not always unproblematic or easy to use. Whilst other scholars have discussed important factors in the development and uptake of telephony, such as business economics and intellectual property, this article focuses on usage, and argues that
Science centres and museums in Europe traditionally offer opportunities for public participation, such as dialogues, debates and workshops. In recent years, starting with the support of grants from the European Commission, the purpose of these initiatives is increasingly more connected with the policy making processes where science centres play a role as brokers between the public and other stakeholders. This article begins an investigation on how these two levels of participation – the participation of museums in policy, and the participation of visitors in museums – are related in seven
Charismatic megafauna are exotically impressive creatures guaranteed to attract immediate public fascination and sympathy. Their images and life stories provide indispensable resources for keen environmental campaign groups and publicists. The expression itself – charismatic megafauna – is barely a few decades old. Part of its point is to recall and contrast the hosts of apparently less alluring beings at least as crucial and fragile, possessed of their own cultures and needs, but who instead somehow have to rely for survival and support on the easier appeal of these larger and more compelling