Animals Eat: An Interactive Museum Exhibit For Elementry School Children

April 15th, 1990 - March 31st, 1992 | PROJECT

The Brooklyn Children's Museum will create a 3,000 square foot natural science exhibition, "Animals Eat", that will provide interactive experiences that assist children in formulating appropriate concepts of living things. The exhibition and accompanying educational materials will be targeted at children aged 7-10 years old, and will utilize recent research on how children conceptualize biological phenomena. It will focus on familiar animals and on the processes of eating because many observable aspects of the natural world are mediated by the quest for food. The exhibit, capitalizing on existing living collections, will be developed and designed using a variety of interview techniques and formative testing of exhibit prototypes to insure that the content is both appropriate for children and that the exhibition results in successful learning experiences. A broad range of exhibition techniques, including museum objects, interactive units, games, and video will be used. The exhibition will reach more than a million visitors during its five year life. "Animals Eat" will be the first in a series of new core exhibitions at the museum. NSF's award will be supported by more than $320,000 in cost sharing.

Project Website(s)

(no project website provided)

Team Members

Suzanne LeBlanc, Principal Investigator, Brooklyn Children's Museum
Max Cameron, Co-Principal Investigator, Brooklyn Children's Museum

Funders

Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: ISE/AISL
Award Number: 8855601
Funding Amount: 138200

Tags

Audience: Elementary School Children (6-10) | Museum | ISE Professionals
Discipline: Life science
Resource Type: Project Descriptions
Environment Type: Exhibitions | Museum and Science Center Exhibits