Domesticated Animals on Exhibit at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 1900–1928

In 1905 the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University began planning for a new domesticated animals exhibition in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder Louis Agassiz. The resulting displays of variation and heredity in poultry, pigeons, rabbits, mice, and guinea pigs proved surprisingly popular to museumgoers. Some of these specimens still exist in the museum’s storage facilities, namely a series of poultry donated by the biologist Charles B. Davenport and an elaborate set of guinea pigs from the experimental evolutionist William E. Castle. Situating these domesticated animal displays within academic and popular cultures of poultry fancying, animal breeding, and evolutionary science reveals how a nineteenth-century museum known for its ties to anti-evolutionary principles attempted to modernize its public exhibits.     

提升科技博物馆展教结合水平的五大对策与建议

展览、教育作为博物馆的主要公共文化服务形式,得到了越来越多机构的日益重视。但由于科技博物馆在历史、观念、人才等方面的影响和制约,仍存在发展偏差和不足,其中最突出的是机构在理念上重展轻教,在实践中有展少(无)教或以展代教、展教分离等。本文将聚焦展教分离问题展开探讨,并就如何提升科技博物馆的展教结合水平,提出五大对策与建议。     

Expanding media and sexuality studies: a transnational study of sex museums

This article offers an introduction to my current project that investigates transnational flows of mediated sexuality among sex museums and other exhibitions of explicitly erotic materials. The project expands a communication studies focus on electronic media to consider alternative sites of mediation, such as the museum, as richly communicative. I explore the embodied context of museums to shift our traditional focus on audiences toward the more expansive concept of publics. I also trace different types of mobility—of discourses, materials, and people—in the circulation of commodified sexuality. The goal for these explorations is to theorize how sexual publics and mobilities intersect to construct an urbane, cosmopolitan, citizen consumer.     

文化遗产旅游吸引物的意境空间研究——为文化遗产旅游者创造适宜的旅游环境

近来,各种公众媒体的版面充斥着对世界各地著名遗产旅游景点更新改造的报道。文化遗产旅游目的地管理者也承认良好的外部环境在提升旅游者总体满意程度方面发挥着重要作用。阐明了遗产吸引物的自然环境在决定旅游者对景点的态度和未来再次购买意向方面有重要作用．同时影响着他们对亲朋好友的传播意愿。研究表明环境因素在面对顾客塑造永久性的独特品牌形象时可被作为一种差异化工具,并以此创造一种竞争优势。     

Introducing Children to Anatomy: “Getting to Know Our Bodies: The First Step Toward Becoming a Scientist”

Museums are used in every discipline to collect, classify, and present information for scientific purposes. They also serve as an effective educational medium. Since the establishment of a boutique anatomy museum at Bahçeşehir University, lectures, conferences, and seminars have been organized there over the past four years on the history of human anatomy and the human body. In order to raise awareness about the need to make anatomy accessible to kindergarteners and school-aged children, rather than exclusively to undergraduate students, activities that are suited to a wide range of ages have been developed at the museum and at the anatomy laboratory. Four different sessions were conducted, including activities such as lectures using plastic models as props, shaping organs out of playdough, anatomy puzzles, watching cartoons, and examining specimens through a microscope. Healthy and pathologic anatomies were chosen to match daily themes. Among the kindergarteners and elementary school children, no grading was done, nor was any questionnaire administered; however, a survey was administered in the 10–12 age group (N = 64). According to the students' written feedback, 93.75% said they “are happy with microscope activities” while 84.37% said they “had so much fun” participating in the playdough activities. However, 18.75% criticized the activities, saying they “could have been longer.” In conclusion, it is believed that these “getting to know our bodies” activities that were hosted in the anatomy museum, including conferences, workshops, material preparation, and instructional movies, may play an important role in the development of a healthy society.     

数字化能给博物馆带来什么？ ——基于《地平线报告:2015博物馆版》的分析

博物馆数字化工作并非易事,需要多方面的投入和调整。为了更好地推进博物馆数字化工作,“数字化能给博物馆带来什么”是一个需要回答的基本问题。通过对《地平线报告:2015年博物馆版》进行解读,对报告中与观众体验紧密相关的几个关键词进行分析,将数字化对博物馆观众体验的影响概括为:有助于丰富观众的在线体验、有助于深化观众的交互体验、有助于增强观众的参与体验和有助于提升观众体验的社交化和个性化等几个方面。     

Learning and engagement through natural history museums*

This review examines how natural history museums (NHMs) can enhance learning and engagement in science, particularly for school-age students. First, we describe the learning potential of informal science learning institutions in general, then we focus on NHMs. We review the possible benefits of interactions between schools and NHMs, and the potential for NHMs to teach about challenging issues such as evolution and climate change and to use digital technologies to augment more traditional artefacts. We conclude that NHMs can provide students with new knowledge and perspectives, with impacts that can last for years. Through visits and their on-line presence, NHMs can help students see science in ways that the school classroom rarely can, with opportunities to meet scientists, explore whole topic exhibitions, engage with interactive displays and employ digital technologies both in situ and to support learning in the school science classroom. Although these interactions have the potential to foster positive cognitive, affective and social outcomes for students, there is a lack of reliable measures of the impact of NHM experiences for students. Opportunities to foster relationships between NHM staff and teachers through professional development can help articulate shared goals to support students’ learning and engagement.     

基于“大概念”的馆校结合STEM主题活动的设计剖析

近年来,以科技博物馆自身资源为依托开展的科学教育活动备受关注,其中以STEM教育为主题的馆校结合活动与日俱增,但其活动质量也出现良莠不齐的状态。笔者认为馆校结合的STEM主题活动在设计和实施上都需要符合当前科学教育领域中提倡的围绕“大概念”开展教学的教育理念。本文讨论了如何对STEM主题活动中的“大概念”进行解析,活动教学设计中的“大概念”体现在哪里,以及如何将科技博物馆资源融入活动设计中三个核心问题,并以山东科技馆馆校结合STEM主题活动的设计为例进行案例分析。     

The Influence of Hygroscopic Materials on the Fluctuation of Relative Humidity in Museums Located in Historical Buildings

ABSTRACT

The preservation of artefacts in museum collections is profoundly affected by fluctuations in temperature and, especially, relative humidity (RH). Since the late nineteenth century, many studies have been carried out on the best way to control hygrothermal conditions. In old buildings located in maritime temperate climate zones (such as Portugal) with strong thermal inertia, and which have low ventilation rate (relative to the volume and number of visitors), daily and seasonal hygroscopic inertia may help to assure the maintenance of RH stabilization conditions. The use of expensive active systems may be minimized through the passive behaviour of internal finishing building materials. This work presents the results of an experimental laboratory study conducted in a flow chamber to demonstrate the enormous potential of hygroscopic materials in stabilizing interior relative humidity. Based in these results and in-situ monitoring in a museum housed in a building, located in Porto, with a typical construction of the 1950s (granite masonry and reinforced concrete slabs), a numerical analysis was done to quantify the influence of hygroscopic materials in stabilizing the interior relative humidity.