The development of understanding of nature of science (NOS) can be seen as one of the educational goals of natural history museums. In these museums, guides take on the role of educators responsible for shaping the content and style of guided tours. They play a crucial role in making scientific knowledge and narratives accessible to visitors,…

Advances in technology have enabled museum curators to employ equipment that can measure visitors' physiological responses, offering a means to monitor these responses, while, at the same time, potentially engaging visitors. However, it is unclear whether these devices genuinely promote a positive experience or, conversely, are perceived as…

In prior research, museum attendance has been shown to positively impact educational outcomes for children, teens, and adults, yet little has been documented about who is attending and how often. This paper is the first to provide comprehensive descriptive and regression analyses to explore museum attendance among youth (5 to 18 year-olds) in the…

Background: In this paper, we add to the scant literature base on learning from failures with a particular focus on understanding educators' shifting mindset in making-centred learning environments. Aims: The aim of Study 1 was to explore educators' beliefs about failure for learning and instructional practices within their local making-centred…

Most museum education research has focused on examining collaborative partnerships between artists and schoolteachers or artists and museum educators, in schools or art museums. This research investigates the collaborative partnership among artists, museum educators, and schoolteachers within the context of art museum education. Using the Double…

At the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a new museum being built in South Los Angeles, members of the Learning and Engagement and Social Impact divisions lead neighborhood orientations for staff from across the museum. During orientations, staff visit four neighborhoods directly surrounding the Exposition Park neighborhood, where the museum will…

Bernard Stiegler diagnoses that we live in societies of control under an aesthetic conditioning. Marketing emerges as the foundational force in societies of control, adept at shaping individual desires and cultivating them into consumerism. Capturing our attention, particularly through audiovisual mediums, dictates our behaviour. In essence, the…

Biology and art have been linked throughout history. Early scientists, such as Leonardo de Vinci and John James Audubon, used sketches and painting to document their findings. Even early hominids left evidence of their world through cave art. Histology, the microscopic study of tissues and cells, relies on defining shape and spatial relationships…

Art-based education has been gaining the attention of healthcare educators as a means of promoting empathy, observation, and mindfulness in healthcare practitioners. This paper discusses using art-based education to encourage transformative learning and social justice in healthcare education. Specifically, we explore how this approach can…

For the past seven years, we -- a museum educator and an academic radiologist -- have co-taught Seeing in Art and Medical Imaging, a first-of-its-kind medical humanities curriculum for residents in nuclear medicine and radiology based at the Harvard Art Museums. The program aims to foster residents' close looking and clinical skills,…

This article explores the innovative concept of narrative medicine, an interdisciplinary field merging humanities, arts, clinical practice, and healthcare justice, which seeks to deepen the understanding of patient experiences within healthcare settings. It highlights the transformative impact of using art museums, such as The Art Institute of…

Local implementation of science reform efforts in part relies on science teacher leaders (STLs) to improve science instruction in classrooms and beyond. The lack of science-specific professional learning resources drives STLs to act as boundary spanners to locate resources outside their local context to fill that gap. Museums and other informal…

The transformation of natural history and science museums from receptacles (temples) to facilitators (forums) of knowledge fosters discourse around issues relating to science and society, known as social scientific issues (SSI). To assist guests with enhanced object-based learning, extended reality (XR) technologies are thought to leverage the…

Theoretically framed by public pedagogy, the study explores teachers' use of public sites for undocumented migrant children. The findings demonstrate that teachers utilized various non-school, informal, and public spaces including libraries/museums, open marketplaces, and public parks/squares as powerful platforms to foster children's learning,…

The authors, a museum educator and a psychiatrist, present a case study of their collaborative work to develop museum experiences for trauma survivors participating in an outpatient treatment program that uses Cognitive Processing Therapy. The thesis behind the program, now in its eighth year, was that an art museum experience could be designed to…