Science Museums in Transition: Unheard Voices considers how museums can adapt their exhibits, programs, and organizational structures to the diversity of ideas, people, and cultures that speak to modern science.
This collection contains individual expressions by museum insiders addressing a range of particular perspectives – Native American, African American, Latinx, Islamic, Israeli, Danish, white North American. These reflections provide guidance to the museum community as to how their institutions can become more thoughtful, more welcoming to diverse audiences, and more cognizant of the ways that different people incorporate science into their daily lives. As a whole, the book emphasizes the need for museums to engage in dialogue with their visitors – not merely to present them with information – and to offer the opportunities to share experiences, exchange perspectives, and thereby advance science learning through a dynamic and collective process.
Science Museums in Transition: Unheard Voices is intended to further discussion on how museums address the political and social ramifications of science and, as such, should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of museum studies, science, anthropology, education and history. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals around the globe.
Contributor Biographies
1. Inclusion and Relevance in Natural History Museums by Judy Diamond
2. Re-Exhibiting Africa at the Penn Museum: An Interview with Penn Museum Curator Tukufu Zuberi by Monique Scott
3. Science, Islam and Critical Thinking: Lessons for Museums by Rana Dajani
4. Museum Mantras, Teachings from Indian Country: Posterity is Now; Failure is an Option, and Repatriation is a Foundation for Research by Jen Shannon
5. Ensuring Our People Have a Place that Feels Like Home by Elijah Benson, Royce Young Wolf, and Mary Baker "Price" with Jen Shannon
6. Reflections on Empowering Youth in Science Museums by Marianne Achiam
7. Promoting Responsible Citizenship in Science Museums through Student Curated Exhibits by Sherman Rosenfeld and Ron Blonder
8. Conflicts Between Traditional Knowledge Systems And Western Science: Do We Need To Revise Our Thinking in Order to Engage Youth from All Heritages? by Laura Huerta Migus
9. Navigating Worldviews in Conversation with David Begay and Nancy Maryboy by Laura Huerta Migus
10. Youth and the Challenge to Define the Museum of the Future by Hooley McLaughlin
Hooley McLaughlin is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto in Canada. Judy Diamond is a Professor and Curator at the University of Nebraska State Museum in the USA.