Museums have become a crucible for questions of the role that traditional art and art history should play in contemporary art. Friedrich Nietzsche argued in the nineteenth century that museums can be no more than mausoleums for effete (fine) art. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, curators dispelled such blanket pessimism by…

In 1978, the Michigan State University Museum and Michigan 4-H Youth Development teamed together to develop Folkpatterns, a program to engage youth across the state of Michigan in cultural heritage educational activities. With support from National Endowment for the Humanities grants, 4-H education and museum-based humanities specialists, along…

Dominated by street after street of granite federal office buildings, the DC was a place that just couldn't jump-start itself into world-class status. Of course, it offered free, topnotch museums, but everyone lived and breathed politics and the town was sorely lacking a throbbing urban pulse. The absence of a major league baseball team said it…

Charles Carroll Jr. would be long forgotten but for a single notable accomplishment: he built an exceedingly handsome house. Begun in 1801 with money from his wealthy father-- Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence-- the Federal-style home has near-perfect proportions and airy rooms. The…

This article describes the evolution of a partnership between Brooklyn College (BC) of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) that ultimately resulted in the formal incorporation of the museum's online Seminars on Science (SoS) courses into master's degree programs at Brooklyn College for teachers…

This article describes a unit of study about Colonial America given in Lubbock, Texas, in which fifth grade students learn about the crafts system by becoming apprentices for a time. The students apply to apprentice with a master crafts person, a mentor, and learn some basic methods of a craft. Mentors are typically students' relatives, friends of…

This research project examines the way that children and parents talk about science outside of school and, specifically, how they show distributed expertise about biological topics during visits to a science center. We adopt a theoretical framework that looks at learning on three interweaving planes: individual, social, and cultural (tools,…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss the results of the Log Analysis of Internet Resources in the Arts and Humanities (LAIRAH) study. It aims to concentrate upon the use and importance of information resources, physical research centres and digital finding aids in scholarly research. Design/methodology/approach: Results are presented…

The taking up of an "educative" mantle has proven to be a complex task for museums, filled with many unknown and/or misunderstood factors. Of the vast assortment of educational opportunities museums afford their adult patrons and staff, the majority fall into one or two learning categories: either they are nonformal or informal. In effort to…

How are educators moving museums' interpretive goals beyond exhibition galleries? How are programs creating new relationships between a museum and its adult audiences? As plans for physical transformation at the Chicago History Museum took form, the education department launched a parallel process of planning to redefine the "look and…

How video interacted with the art on display at the Israel Museum. (Author)

We must begin to learn how to make more effective educational use of the several thousand musuems that exist in the United States. They represent virtually untapped resources within the academic community. (Author/IRT)

The National Art Museum of Sport, which combines art and sport, is described. (DB)