This paper discusses the topic of visitor circulation through exhibition spaces. Specifically, this paper cites findings from a visitor tracking study through five traveling exhibits at the Anniston Museum of Natural History. Questions explored include: 1) How much influence does the spatial arrangement of objects within a gallery have on the behavior of visitors?; 2) How much do the characteristics of exhibit objects influence visitor behavior?; and 3) How effective are techniques for increasing visitation to a changing exhibit hall?
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Stephen BitgoodJoe HinesWayne HambergerWilliam Ford
In this paper, researchers from Colorado State University and the Denver Museum of Natural History discuss the topic of attitude persuasion in exhibits. First, they define the concepts attitude, belief and behavior and describe how to appropriately measure these concepts. Second, the researchers discuss how the concepts are related and also how they are related to future behaviors. Third, a technique for designing or improving an exhibit to increase the likelihood of visitor attitude change is explained. Finally, the researchers present an example from a study performed on the "Close to Home"
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jerome V. D' AgostinoRoss J. LoomisBetsy Webb
This article discusses a 1988-1990 study that analyzed the effectiveness of a collaborative effort between a museum and a school system to build an integrated curriculum package. The partners included the York County School System (VA) and the Yorktown Victory Center (operated by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation). The theme of the curriculum was 18th Century Medicine and the unit was designed to enhance the science, math, and social studies instruction of fourth graders.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ronald GieseJudy Davis-DorseyJoseph Gutierrez
Acting on behalf of a group of academic, educational and public-service organizations the University of California-Santa Barbara proposes to improve aquatic science education in informal settings that include youth-service organizations such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, Boys and Girls Clubs and 4-H. The specific emphasis will be on the close interdependence between humans and the aquatic environment and on the need for enlightened social action in defense of that environment. The thrusts of the project will be to establish the California Aquatic Science Education Consortium; to develop multiple copes of sets of instructional materials on topic of aquatic science appropriate for informal educational settings; and to develop a program for training a cadre of trainers who in turn will train volunteers in the use of the materials. The program has a significant potential for broader national application.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, PA requests NSF support for a 5000 sf traveling exhibit on The Human Brain that is being developed for the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative (SMEC). This exhibit offers an integrated understanding of how physiological structures in the brain relate to vital life functions and human behaviors. Senior members of the exhibit development team include distinguished neuroscientists who are locally available and committed to The Franklin Institute project; the team is also advised by a large panel of nationally recognized experts in brain research. Like all SMEC exhibits, The Brain will be seen by over two million Americans during a 32-month tour to eight major cities across the United States. During the 1990's -- "The Decade of the Brain" -- the proposed exhibit project is important and timely in its ability to inform the public about new ideas and discoveries in the many sciences of brain research.
A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES is a five-part series to be produced by WETA fornational PBS broadcast in the 1993-94 season. The series is to be adapted from the best- selling book of the same title. Its author, Diane Ackerman, will present the programs and collaborate with the producers throughout. Each program will focus on a single sense: smell, touch, taste, hearing and vision respectively. Each will explore: how the world is sensed by animals and humans, including the evolution of the sense; what is perceived; and how human beings reconstruct and recreate their sensory worlds, through cuisines and perfumes, music, sculpture and painting. Shot on location around the world, these documentary films will incorporate viewpoints from anatomy, physiology and neurochemistry, experimental and perceptual psychology, cultural anthropology, literature, art, music and history. Compelling stories and illustrative vignettes and precise graphic animation will arise from rigorous research, in collaboration with a board of advisors. By unifying material from science and the arts and humanities, the series will reach a general audience. Viewers will be awakened to a new awareness of the range and power of their senses. Companion materials for schools will extend the series to the formal learning environment and will motivate further study.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard HuttonDavid McGowanRichard Thomas
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose seeks National Science Foundation grant support in the amount of $381,000 (55% of a total project cost of $693,188) to develop over a 24-month period a series of interactive exhibits exploring the subject of rhythm, including both obvious and lesser known manifestations within the natural and physical worlds. Drawing upon the scientific disciplines of mathematics, biology, physics and psychology, RHYTHM takes as its construct the idea of time, the articulation of which means for apprehending and understanding rhythm. Working with outside advisors in science education and specific content areas, Co-PI Michael Oppenheimer will develop and build 20 exhibits, which will be semi- permanently installed at Children's Discovery Museum and accessible to our annual visitor population of 350,000; exhibits will also be profiled on "Kids" Clubhouse," a television program developed jointly by the Museum and our local PBS affiliate, KTEH/54, viewed by 55,000 weekly. Matching funds are also being requested to support curricular materials and a traveling version of RHYTHM. Over a 2-year, 8-site tour the Association of Science and Technology Centers projects that the series will reach a national audience of more than 1,000,000 children and adults. As a comprehensive project, RHYTHM provides a compelling model for addressing imperatives articulated in Science for All Americans, the landmark report issued by Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Located in San Jose, California, the Museum serves an expanding urban area characterized by extraordinary ethnic diversity: Santa Clara County's 1.5 million residents are 42% non-Anglo, while San Jose is 50.8% Hispanic, Asian and Black.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sally OsbergKoen LiemTom NielsenMichael Oppenheimer
The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Texas will develop a 4,000 square-foot traveling science exhibit on FORENSICS: The Science of Criminal Investigation for circulation to eight major U.S. Cities through the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative (SMEC). FORENSICS will examine the scientific methods and technologies used in today's crime labs. Core science areas are: DNA profiling; Fingerprinting; Firearms Identification; Evidence Collection; Composites; Forensic Anthropology; Forensic Entomology; Forensic Geology; Odontology; Pathology; Serology; toxicology; Trace Evidence. The development of FORENSICS will draw from the expertise of a distinguished panel of forensic scientists, law enforcement officers, and science educators. FORENSICS will foster science process skills, problem-solving, and deductive reasoning by challenging visitors to solve a crime mystery. A Teacher's Resource Guide to the exhibit will promote indepth classroom investigations of forensics for middle grade (5-9) science lessons. The exhibit will open in Fort Worth in May of 1993, and then tour nationally to eight major U.S. cities, serving over 2.5 million American citizens during its SMEC travel itinerary.
WNET/Thirteen will produce a series of 10 one hour public television programs, "CHILDHOOD" that will explore how children grow and develop,and how parents and societies have raised children throughout history and across cultures. Extensive use of current research and scholarships from the disciplines of developmental and cognitive psychology, anthropology and sociology, education, history and culture will be used to create a coherent and revealing view of childhood development. The series will be heavily promoted on public television, will be accompanied by a trade book and viewer's guide, and should generate audiences of more than 10 million viewers in its first series airing, based on prior experience with the producers prior series, "The Brain"; the accompanying trade book sold more than 150,000 copies. The producers of this series are highly skilled at the interpretation of complex scientific subjects on television, with a number of award-winning series to their credit. They have assembled an prestigious international team of advisors and consultants. WNET has a realistic plan for raising the $7.5 million necessary to complete the project from the PBS/CPB Superfund, corporations, and co-production agreements. An award of $200,000 in FY 87 and continuing funding of $200,000 in FY 88 based on satisfactory progress is recommended.
The Museum of Science will design and produce an exhibition, "Two of Every Sort", whose aim is to present a scientific basis for the public's understanding of genser, reproduction and human diversity. Using interactive techniques and state-of-the-art media technology, the exhibition will debut at the Museum in Boston, tour science centers in seven other cities and reach an audience of nearly 2.5 million. The eight museums are members of the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, which has approved "Two of Every Sort" as one of a second round of shared-cost exhibitions scheduled to appear at each of the member institutions. "Two of Every Sort" (4,000 square feet) will present introductory scientific overview, ranging among biology, anthropology, botany and biomedical technology, to make discussion of these difficult and sensitive matters more meaningful. The exhibit will offer an unusual opportunity to millions of people -- families, teachers and youngsters, to consider complex questions in a safe, friendly learning environment.
WGBH/Boston in association with the Chedd-Angier Production plan the production of a series of five one hour public television programs on the environmental history of North America, "A Continent Transformed". Each of the programs will emphasize a key process which has shaped American environmental history: biological invasion, drawing boundaries, linking transportation and market systems, projecting ideals onto the landscape, and increasing the pace and complexity of systematic change. The principal author of the series and its on camera host will be William Cronin, a leading ecological historian. The series will be assisted by a prestigious Advisory Board, educational materials will be developed for series classrom use, and 8 million viewers should see each episode when the series airs in the Fall of 1992. NSF support will represent approximately 10% of the project total.
The Museum will develop an interactive traveling exhibition entitled "Our Weakening Web: The Study of Extinction" that will explore the process of extinction and examine the current role humanity is playing in that process. Is humanity accelerating the rate of extinction by modifying the global environment? The goals of the exhibit are 1) that visitors discover that extinction is a natural process, 2) that visitors explore the many ways humanity is modifying the world,s environment, and 3) that visitors understand how their actions are related to the world's environmental problems and how they can make changes in their lifestyles to help protect the environment. Three size versions (8000 sq. ft., 4000 sq. ft., and 1800 sq. ft.) of the exhibit will be created in order to maximize the number of museums that are able to accommodate the exhibit. After its opening in Cincinnati in 1994, it will travel to approximately twenty-eight museums during the next three to four years. Each venue will have the exhibit for about four months. Complementary activities will be developed and manuals describing these as well as sample materials will accompany each exhibit. These activities will include a teacher's guide, local resource guide, on- floor demonstrations, short theater presentations, and an adult lecture series. Sample press kits and copies of all promotional materials will be included in the exhibit package as well.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Susan SchultzChristopher BedelSandra Shipley