This study evaluates the Living Land Living Sea exhibit at the Royal British Columbia Museum, with specific attention to gathering data related to visitor response to dioramas. The results of this study indicated that small but significant amounts of knowledge gain did occur upon visiting the Living Land Living Sea gallery, that attitudinal change was not measured, and that exhibit type clearly affects attracting power and holding power.
In this article, Randi Korn discusses methods and key findings from a study that evaluated the Japanese Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The study evaluated which exhibit objects attracted visitor interest and the effectiveness of the interpretive materials. Visitor input was used in designing the interpretive materials.
In this article, researchers at Jacksonville State University compare three approaches to control littering: environmental education, environmental design, and consequence control. The authors also briefly suggest ways museum/zoo professionals can combine these techniques to control litter.
In this article, researchers at Jacksonville State University share methods and findings from a study that compared the effectiveness of three types of "Do-Not-Feed" signs at the monkey island in the Birmingham Zoo. This is a summary of a paper to be presented at the Southeastern Psychological Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans in March, 1988.
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Stephen BitgoodJerry CarnesAngela NaborsDon Patterson
In this article, Valerie D. Thompson of the San Diego Zoological Gardens discusses findings from a 10-week observational study during the summer months of 1977 to investigate the nature of noncompliant behavior of zoo visitors. Noncompliant behaviors included distracting, teasing, feeding, or attempting to injure the animals. Thompson addresses how these findings have helped alleviate problematic behavior at the zoo.
The California Academy of Sciences, a major natural history institution located in San Francisco, will develop Life Through Time, a large permanent exhibition on evolution that will inform and challenge visitors as they "walk through" a series of exhibits which encourages them to touch and explore. The exhibition will cover the history of life on earth, how scientists recognize and evaluate change through time, the scientific method and process of discovering, and the impact of evolution. A teacher's educational resource kit with hands-on materials will be developed for use in the schools along with teacher training courses. The exhibition will reach a substantial audience, over a million and a half visitors per year. Additionally, 44% of the San Francisco elementary school children are visited each year by Academy docents, the mobile classroom reaches 7,000 Bay Area residents, over 5,000 children and adults take classes at the Academy and 10,000 school children visit the museum each year.
The New England Aquarium will develop an "inquiry-driven" gallery for the study of aquatic sciences in a move to go beyond the "naming" experiences in biology and environmental education. The project will focus on seven conceptual themes: 1) adaptation and evolution; 2) habitat; 3) life cycles; 4) development and metamorphosis; 5) species interactions; 6) energy flow: and 7) signals and senses. The exhibits will challenge the visitor with questions, puzzles and games. Curriculum materials will be developed for teachers along with a users guide for visitors. Outreach activities are planned, aimed at minority students and visitors. The Aquarium serves approximately 155,000 students and over one million visitors every year. The redesigned gallery will house eight tanks, ranging from a series of small tanks with accompanying video clips that display seldom seen behaviors such as the "birth" of seahorses, lobster molting, etc. to three 250-gallon tanks that will display ancient fishes and a variety of species showing different kinds of locomotion, color and sound. A 2500- gallon tank housing a school of fish will demonstrate different ways terrestrial and aquatic animals sense their surroundings. A 4000-gallon floor to ceiling tank will display a salt marsh on one side and a mangrove forest on the other and a 6000-gallon tank will house large groupers, moray eels and small gobies. The NSF award represents $273,971 out of a project total of $857,986.
This project at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, Durham, North Carolina, will create a 2000 square foot permanent exhibition, "The Science Behind Medicine", using recent advances in medical science and technology to illustrate basic science concepts. It will engage visitors through their strong interest in health and medicine, present valuable information about medical subjects, and use their interest to present underlying scientific concepts they would otherwise avoid. The exhibition will be organized around four topics: organ structure and function and organ replacement and transplantation; advances in medical imaging, including infrared, ultrasound and x-ray technologies; pharmaceutical pharmacology, biological receptors and molecular design; and sickle cell anemia and its molecular biology. Over five years, more than one million people will use the exhibit, including both highly educated residents of the Research Triangle area, and a Durham population that is disadvantaged and 50% black. Extensive subject area consultation and formative evaluation will be used in exhibition design. A close consulting relationship is planned with two museums with similar exhibit interests, and exhibit research and plans will be offered to other interested museums to encourage wider use of the project's results. A strong regional health sciences focus will benefit the project through academic, business, community and industry membership on a project planning committee, and from 50% local matching funding. Two corporate planning grants have been awarded to the project, and a major facilities expansion funded in part by a recent bond issue.
The Museum of Science in Boston proposes a major modification of its permanent New England Wildlife Zones exhibition hall in order to improve its effectiveness with visitors with impaired sight, hearing, or mobility. They will document and share with other museums the successful methods and techniques used in the exhibition development process is an effort to improve barrier free access in the country's more than 600 science and natural history museums. The museum has completed a preliminary needs assessment with the assistance of handicapped consultants, developed alternative design solutions to problems of limited accessibility and effectiveness for the hall's existing dioramas, and organized a design team that includes senior museum exhibition and education staff and a handicapped scientist and educator as Co-PI. The Massachusetts College of Art's Adaptive Environments Center will provide assistance in design for the handicapped and evaluation will be under the direction of George Hein, head of Lesley College's Program Evaluatlion and Research Group. Following an extensive design and evaluation process, new exhibit units will be constructed as educational adjuncts to the existing hall of dioramas, and the impact of the changes will be assessed, as part of a dissemination plan that will include popular and professional papers and a "how to" work book distributed to science museum exhibit designers with the assistance of the Association of Science Technology Centers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is a challenging project with the opportunity for a significant impact on handicapped individuals who are often excluded from the motivational and informational resources of science and natural history museums by unnecessary design limitations. The Museum of Science's commitment is strong, the project staff are highly qualified, and there is active participation by handicapped individuals in the project.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Larry BellCharles HowarthBetty Davidson
Dorand Shannon New Orleans' Audubon Zoological Garden will design and construct a 3,000 square foot exhibition "Pathways to the Past" that will utilize interactive exhibits to highlight the ancestral link between birds and reptiles and to explore the ensuing development of each species. The permanent exhibition, occupying a prominent place in the newly remodeled Odenheimer building, will be used both by 125,000 school children visiting the zoo each year and for the more than one million regular visitors. More than a third of the residents of New Orleans are minority group members. Zoos are increasingly emphasizing their science communication and science education mission in the context of zoological research and species preservation. They have a substantial need for improved educational resources to better meet the needs of the large and broad cross section of their visitors. The Audubon Zoo's specific plans for interactive exhibits are well thought out, with many connections back to the living collection of the zoo. They have assembled an advisory committee and consulting team that includes scientists, zoologists, educators and science education specialists. They plan a variety of educational materials in support of the exhibition, and will communicate the results of the project to other zoos through reports, publications and presentations. More than $213,000 in direct matching support will be provided by private sources. An FY87 award of $185,915 to the Audubon Zoological Garden is recommended.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dale StastnyKevin BowlerPeter ShannonSteven Dorand
The National Aquarium in Baltimore will create 20 interactive interpretive exhibits relating to cetaceans as an integral part of a new Marine Mammal complex opening in 1989. Exhibits will complement cetacean behavior demonstrations conducted by mammologists in a 1300 seat marine amphitheater. Exhibit topics and content will be developed in response to survey and evaluation data on popular interests and misconceptions about marine mammals by a design team consisting of aquarium staff, educators, marine scientists, designers, and evaluators. The resulting interactive exhibits will be seen by one and a half million visitors a year in an exhibit area adjacent to the marine amphitheater where visitors will gather prior to and after scheduled demonstrations. NSF project support will be matched by an equal contribution from the National Aquarium.
The Brookfield Zoo, operated by the Chicago Zoological Society, will develop a participatory exhibition on avian anatomy, physiology, behavior and ecology, "Be a Bird", whose overall goal is to bring biology to life with participatory exhibits in a zoo setting. The Brookfield Zoo will design and construct a permanent exhibition that uses discovery learning concepts to improve visitor understanding of birds and to motivate visitors to observe avian behavior in their everyday lives. Accompanying evaluation activities will contribute to a better understanding of informal education methods in zoos.