Exploratorium Museum Professional Series – serie

This brief volume describes an innovative activity that can be used by museum professionals to foster two key inquiry skills asking a good question and articulating discoveries. A hybrid between a research report and a how-to manual, it describes the development, evaluation, and results of Juicy Question, a collaborative activity designed to foster group inquiry among families or school field trips. The authors demonstrate how the activity changed the behavior of museum visitors and taught them important inquiry skills for use in other informal education settings. Sponsored by the Exploratorium, San Francisco.

A must for exhibit developers, researchers, educators, and other museum professionals looking for ways to engage visitors more deeply with interactive science exhibits, this book documents the exploration and findings of the Exploratorium‘s Active Prolonged Engagement project, funded by the National Science Foundation. Both a significant contribution to visitor research and a nuts-and-bolts guide to exhibit development, Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement includes 15 APE Tales (exhibit recipes with photos, drawings, and detailed construction specifications); discussions of setting explicit goals for visitors exhibit experiences; research and evaluation methods and results; and lessons learned for building constructivist-style exhibits.