Museums and Education: Connecting the Elements of Education to Science and Children's Museums

Abstract

Museums are informal environments that incorporate various elements of learning, such as: the learner environment, learners and learning, curriculum and teaching strategies, and assessment. This paper focuses on these elements that are apparent in children's museums and science museums. Important aspects of these topics that are discussed include: participation, agency, mediation, collaborative learning, novelty of resources, community connections, partnerships between museum and researcher, the use of background knowledge, motivation, interest, inquiry, the zone of proximal development, discourse, and play. There are also implications to be considered from understanding these elements of the informal museum setting, and how they relate to and affect the formal classroom setting.