The Exploratorium will develop an exhibit focusing on three areas of mental activity that process perceptions and enable human action: attention, emotion and judgment. Developers will create 32 new interactive exhibits and rebuild six to eight old ones to be part of the museum's permanent collection. The Exploratorium will develop a new area in the museum dedicated to exploring the processes of the human mind and brain, experiment with new ways of creating meaningful mind experiences for visitors and help establish a sense of collective experimentation among science centers in neuroscience and psychology exhibits and programming.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michael PearceRichard BrownKathleen McLean
In this article, Lee H. Skolnick, Founding Principal of Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership, critiques the Museum of Sex and explores sex as an appropriate museum exhibition topic. Skolnick concludes that sex can have a place in exhibits and investigates how to design such exhibits.
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.
This project will create a series of half hour radio programs that will educate audiences about the environment and traditions of the northern Polar Region. Each radio program will be recorded in the wilds of Alaska and northern Canada during close contact with nature providing a direct authentic experience. Cultural anthropologist and author, Dr. Richard Nelson will host the programs on topics such as wildlife, ecosystems, weather and climate, glaciology, communities and land, and indigenous traditions. Distributors of the programs include the Alaska Public Radio Network, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and inserts in NPR's Living on Earth.
Federal support for museums through the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is based on the premise that museums are valuable community organizations providing rich opportunities for learning and civic engagement. Yet, until recently, there has been a paucity of systematic and evidence-based research on the public impact of museums. Therefore, since 2005, the IMLS Office of Museum Services has funded research projects under the auspices of the National Leadership Grant program. These grants support projects that ‘raise the bar’ in museum research and practice. Funded projects have