Science centres are a new and an innovative way of teaching science informally. Science centres in foreign countries are commonly known as Science museums. Presently we have six science centres in operation in South Africa. Science centres are built along similar guidelines of their foreign partners. The concept of science centres have been in South Africa for the last five years. Visitation to the Science centre with the use of stimuli will enable visitors to build on their existing knowledge and construct new knowledge. Visitation is free and open to all in the public. The science centre is to capture the attention of their visitors with their exhibits. The exhibits are “hands on” and employ different designs and colours to capture the attention of the learners. Learning in the science centre adopts a very informal method of teaching as compared to the formal education system. Learners and visitors are to interact with another and share their experiences. Learning occurs by personal, social interaction and the physical settings. The personal context looks at learning that occurs through motivation and expectations, prior knowledge, interest, beliefs and their choice of exhibits. The personal also engages the learner to stimulate their understanding and most important the learner is to take responsibility for their own learning. Social interaction occurs when visitors engage in interaction with another and learn from one another. The physical refers to the environment and the exhibit design to stimulate the mind of the visitor. Science centres are to exhibit ideas and concepts rather than objects. Exhibits are for the visitors to explore and handle them and to enjoy the experience of the centre. To ensure the visit is productive and beneficial to the learners, the educator needs to have pre-visit lessons. This would allow for the learners to familiarise themselves to the settings and to know what is expected of them on their visit. Post-visit activities will reiterate the purpose of the visit. The Wilcoxon T-test was administered to confirm that visits to the science centres are beneficial to the learners. This was validated by a Pre, Post Test activities and interviews. Analysis of the data confirms that a previsit, post visit and the interview have shown positive feedback. Informal learning has a great future to play in the learning of science at schools. South Africa needs to reach out to the country and open the minds of the public to show them the benefits of the centre and how it would help the public and their choice of their careers. To improve the visit to the science centre the following recommendations and guidelines are recommended for the educator and the learner: a) Pre-visit activities b) Activities during the visit c) Post-visit activities These recommendations are needed to be worked hand in hand with the science centre to develop better learning skills for their learners and to ensure their visit is fruitful, meaningful and enjoyable. / Prof. J. Strauss

The following paper is an attempt to explore the internal dynamics of small community museums. This exploration takes the form of two case studies in which the various points of view of staff and volunteers are presented. The results point to the emergence of two distinct and generally conflicting orientations on the part of individuals in both museums. These orientations are identified respectively as service to the community, on one hand, and as a concern with standardization and control or professionalism, on the other. The second focus of the paper deals with some of the recent reports concerning evaluation of training programs as well as future directions for community museums, as perceived by organizations such as the British Columbia Museums Association, the Canadian Museums Association, and the National Museums of Canada. What emerges from the examination of this literature is the growing preoccupation on the part of these organizations with the creation of a museum profession. It becomes clear that those who espouse this notion of professionalism demonstrate the same preoccupation with control and standardization as do the "professionally-oriented" individuals in the two case studies presented. Finally, three alternative futures for community museums are presented. The first one envisions the complete professionalization of the small museum and the loss of its community service orientation. The second future shows the two orientations continuing in conflict, in some instances providing a creative dynamic. The third possible future is one in which all of the organizations and individuals involved recognize and take steps to preserve the unique nature of the community museum through astute training programs and support mechanisms, while allowing for the limited and appropriate use of professional methods and standards. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Action research has proven to be a powerful protocol for enhancing best-practices pedagogy and for guiding reflective practitioners in becoming effective change agents. This dissertation uses action research methods to, first, frame the institutional process of crafting a new, complex water exhibit at a Massachusetts children’s museum; and second, to closely follow, reflect upon, and assess the efforts by multiple stakeholders across a two-year period to produce an exemplary learning environment. This research provides parameters by which other children’s museums can likewise maximize their creativity and resources in exhibit development through the use of fully substantiated action research methodology.

Over the last four decades, museum education in the United States has developed into a legitimate and respected profession. However, for those who want to become art museum educators, the path is neither clear nor smooth. Those in the profession often face low pay, limited career growth opportunities, and a lack of job security. Despite these realities, the museum education field continues to attract people. Yet, there is scant literature about novice art museum educators, specifically about how they find their way as they enter the profession. Utilizing a post-intentional phenomenological methodology, this qualitative study explores the phenomenon of wayfinding, defined as how someone orients themselves to the museum education profession and the ways they navigate the opportunities and challenges they encounter. The research questions guiding this study include how wayfinding took shape for five art museum educators with less than two years of work experience, what they went through upon entering the profession, and what helped them navigate their way. Phenomenological research methods, including three one-on-one interviews with each participant over six months and a focus group with all of the study participants, were employed to gather rich descriptions of their lived experiences. The research materials were placed in dialogue with concepts that resonated with wayfinding as described by the study participants, including self-identity, agency, and relational autonomy. Findings illuminate how (un)welcoming these novice art museum educators found museum spaces, how their sense of self intersected with their wayfinding, how they enacted agency, and how they drew upon relationships with other people. Insights into the unique experiences of novice museum educators of color, the empowering effects of agency, the varying roles of mentoring and peer support, and the value of pausing to reflect on lived experiences are shared. While the findings are limited to the educators in the study and are not representative of the field at large, this study provokes and produces new ways of understanding wayfinding for novice art museum educators. As the field of museum education continues to evolve, this study offers pertinent insights to university instructors who teach museum education courses, education supervisors in art museums, people who are interested in a museum education career, and art museum educators already working in the field.

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This thesis investigates how the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA can strive to be more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible within its collections and exhibits. By understanding the cultural insights of visitors, potential visitors, staff, and one member of the board of trustees through anthropological inquiry, museum leaders can utilize this information to better serve the stakeholders within the greater community that the museum aims to represent. The results of this research provide valuable insights into why people visit the museum, and which exhibits or artifacts are popular among both first time and recurring visitors. In addition, the results also provide context for obstacles that prevent people from visiting, shed insight into power dynamics between staff, museum leaders, and public stakeholders and how these can limit diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the museum. By drawing on postmodernism, and political economy within anthropology, this thesis sheds a deeper insight into issues of DEI at the Museum of Flight, and ultimately, what steps the museum can take to be more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible to all stakeholders within its collections and exhibits.

This thesis aims at providing a cross-cultural study of how football museums represent and construct identities, both collective and personal. The research is based on a multi-sited ethnography at selected football museums in the UK, Germany, and China, employing participant observation, photographic recording and online research methods. This investigation sharpens an anthropological awareness of constructions of multiple layered identities by examining football museums' exhibiting practices and activity programmes, as well as their built environments and cultural settings. The research also offers a perspective on museum visitors, who consume football museums with diverse personal and collective identity claims. Looking into the largely under-explored terrain of football museums, this research joins continuing anthropological efforts to understand identity work while also exploring continuing tensions inherent in a marriage between museums and football. The thesis contributes to the research field of football/sports museums with an ethnographic emphasis and a cross-cultural range.

This thesis looks at Tibetan material culture in Scottish museums, collected between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It examines how collectors used Tibetan objects to construct both Tibet in the western imagination and to further personal, organisational and imperial desires and expectations. Through an analysis of the highly provenanced material available in Scottish museums, collectors will be grouped in three categories: missionaries, military personnel and colonial collectors. These are not only divided by occupation, but also by ideological frames of reference. The historical moments in which these different collector groups encountered Tibetan material culture will provide a framework for an examination of the ways that collectors accessed, collected, interpreted, used and displayed objects. Within the framework of post-colonial theory, this thesis seeks new ways of understanding assumptive concepts and terminology that has become embedded in western analysis of Tibetan material culture. These include Tibetan Buddhism as a 'religion', 'Tibetan art', 'Tibetan Buddhist art' and the position of Tibetan 'art' versus 'ethnography' in western hierarchies of value. These theoretical concerns are scrutinised through an anthropological methodology, based on the concept of 'object biography', to create an interdisciplinary model for examining objects and texts. Using this model, I will demonstrate that collectors, whilst giving Tibetan material culture a variety of social roles, invested these categories with a range of values. Yet despite this heterogeneity, the mosaic of knowledge produced about Tibet by these varying encounters, established and then cemented British understandings of Tibetan material culture in specific ways, constructed to assist in the British imperial domination of British-Tibetan relations. I will argue that on entering the museum, these richly textured object biographies were 'flattened out', and the information embedded within them that gave traction to interpretations of British-Tibetan encounters was hidden from view, requiring this study to make visible once more the heterogeneity, richness and significance of Tibetan material culture in Scottish museums.

Historic buildings live a double life between climate-adapted largely-passive structures and draughty, poorly-maintained ones. Preservation professionals argue that preserving these structures is more resource effective than constructing new buildings, and that pre-electricity structures were built to take advantage of climate and geography, using passive technologies to perform efficiently. Modern technologies have also been adopted- electrical lights, air conditioning, fire alarms - as a natural progression of inhabitation. Yet in historic house museums, there is still the promise of historic representation, one unmarred by ‘inauthentic’ additions. If modern and past technological changes have been accepted and integrated, how is the historic house museum not a ‘living building culture’? And if house museums are indeed a living building culture, why not allow a more flexible representation of our historic properties if they are interpreted with integrity and honesty? The EPA estimates that buildings represent 65% of the U.S. electricity use, and predictions estimate 80% of the 2030 building stock exists today. If we truly plan to reduce our energy consumption, we must confront the reality that existing buildings are a significant contributor to our output. If, as curators, it is our hope for historic buildings to represent preservation, then we must admit that in preserving the past for the future, we must begin by preserving our future. This thesis analyses the opportunities and risks for historic house museums to respect their historic interpretation but adapt to changing conditions. Examples of energy efficiency strategies both historic and current, will be examined in historic structures, illustrating that caretakers of historic buildings are making value judgments about the future of their property, in terms of environmental, fiscal and historical sustainability. This thesis includes the analysis of a case study historic house museum in Austin, Texas, the French Legation Museum, which is used as a base model for estimating energy efficiency gains from the adoption of some low-energy technologies. Calculations based on this information indicate which integrations and additions could offer the greatest return on investment for this historic building to operate as or more efficiently than a modern code construction without visible or egregious alteration to the historic fabric. / text

Siu Shuk Kuen, Susan. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2006-2007, design report." / RESEARCH / Chapter 1.0 --- Background / Chapter 1.1 --- Background of Human - animal relation / Chapter 1.2 --- Animals' Role in Human Society / Chapter 1.3 --- Thought Relation & Lived Relation / Chapter 2.0 --- Typological Study / Chapter 2.1 --- Zoo / Chapter 2.2 --- Museum / Chapter 2.3 --- Natural History Museum / Chapter 3.0 --- Animal - Human Relation in Hong Kong / Chapter 4.0 --- Site Analysis / DESIGN / Chapter 1.0 --- Design Concept / Chapter 1.1 --- Programs Study / Chapter 1.2 --- Spatia Study / Chapter 1.3 --- Thought Relation & Lived Relation Arrangement / Chapter 1.4 --- Concept / Chapter 1.5 --- Plan / Chapter 1.6 --- Section / Chapter 1.7 --- Views