Visits to science museums can provide a complement to the science learning carried out in schools. However, science museums are informal learning environments where teachers usually have very little control over the ideas being implicated or the experiments that the students carry out. It is necessary to design educational materials for the visit…

What draws practitioners into the field of museum education? Why do many remain in the field long-term and how do they grow professionally? What challenges reinvigorate the practice or persuade educators to leave the field? Using examples from the course of my career and anecdotes from colleagues, this article identifies common experiences that…

In this article, the author describes the learning her students gained from their field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago. On their trip to MCA, her fourth-grade students discovered new and surprising ways to approach the work of artist Dan Flavin.

This article talks about fulldome video, a new technology which has been adopted fairly extensively by the larger, well-funded planetariums. Fulldome video, also called immersive projection, can help teach subjects ranging from geology to history to chemistry. The rapidly advancing progress of projection technology has provided high-resolution…

Art galleries, theaters, and museums are often communicatively inaccessible to people with aphasia. This article describes how a group of people with aphasia and a group of health and arts service providers worked together to develop an arts access initiative that involved people with aphasia in accessing museums and arts courses in the community…

The nationalist function of museums has been the topic of much scholarly attention. The collection of museums at the heart of Washington DC serves as a prime example of how these institutions demand that visitors identify along national affiliations. In this article, the author discusses the case of the National Museum of the American Indian…

Museums are indeed very painful sites for Native people, as they are intimately tied to the colonization process. The museum world has changed significantly from the days when they were considered "ivory towers of exclusivity" to today when Indigenous people are actively involved in making museums more open and community-relevant sites. In this…

A natural history museum is a building where animals, plants, minerals, and other things in nature are kept and exhibited for study. This document is a curriculum guide to provide a variety of activities for educators and their students to use not only when visiting the International Wildlife Museum (Tuscon, Arizona), but also with natural history…

Interactive science and technology centers are flourishing throughout the world. Displays in museums, aquaria and zoos are becoming much more interactive. These places offer exciting opportunities for school children to experience science and technology in a stimulating environment. But do such centers affect learning? Do they offer valuable…

This report of the 1994 meeting of directors of programs funded by the Precollege Science Education Initiative for Science Museums contains proceedings of the meeting along with profiles of grant-supported activities. The community partnerships described share a common theme: the importance of science education not just as a means to an end, but…

Patron service is a high priority in the library setting and alleviating a large percentage of the directional questions will provide librarians with more time to help patrons more thoroughly than they are able to currently. Furthermore, in view of the current economic trend of downsizing, a navigational computer system program has the potential…

This report describes the impetus, accomplishments, and observed results of The Studio Project, which was conceived and implemented by the Arkansas Arts Center Museum School. This project was to help children become more aware of themselves and their environment, with an emphasis on the social, economic, and racial issues that confronted them,…

This paper provides a detailed account of the inception and growth both of the Shaker Historical Society and its museum and library in Shaker Heights, Ohio. It analyzes secondary sources of information and history, primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, records, annual reports, unpublished histories, and museum circulation records. Library…

This research paper advocates that there is no apparent common language among museum exhibit literature that will facilitate those wishing to develop a display. The development process of a display is the same, regardless of the items on display. To address this problem of a common terminology, the recommendations need to be developed for a model…

The history of the Coshocton Public Library (Ohio) is traced from 1872 through 1992, highlighting its connection with the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum. In response to a newspaper editorial, citizens of Coshocton formed the Coshocton Library Association in 1872. The library evolved through the years as a free school library, a municipal library, a…