Science museums and similar institutions provide informal science and environmental education, both on museum grounds and out in the community. Since 2007, the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami, Florida, USA, has run Museum Volunteers for the Environment (MUVE) program, a conservation volunteer program that is also an effective…

Docent programs are in flux. Many institutions have rethought their programs to encourage more diverse voices: some have eliminated the docent role, while others have changed their structure and offered additional training. When The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens decided to invest in its docent program as part of an…

This paper seeks to provide museum professionals with a practical road map to improving outcomes for people with disabilities in their museums. Written by a museum researcher with autism, this paper weaves museum research with interdisciplinary studies, while prioritizing the voices of people with disabilities, in order to develop clear,…

As with many Volunteer Programs, volunteerism at Filoli began in support of a fledgling organization in 1975. Initially a separate nonprofit, Friends of Filoli was created with the purpose of fundraising and other support, but was dissolved in 1989 as it was not self-sufficient. The leadership structure, however, remained and later merged with the…

Research into teaching and learning in science museums has led to innovations in pedagogy, exhibits, and educational programming. Science museum facilitators play a critical role in advancing the educational missions of their institutions, yet the roles that these facilitators have in academic research projects aimed at understanding learning…

In this essay the author recalls the process of organizing and interpreting an exhibition of art and language made in response to a catastrophic fire that devastated California's Sonoma and Napa counties in late 2017. The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art invited a group of artists and writers to be part of its small exhibition planning team to help…

The founder of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (Tenement Museum) explains how her realization that history could be used as a tool for social change inspired the creation of a museum of immigrant life that would be transformative for visitors. She hoped that by placing them in the shoes of immigrants much like their own forebearers, visitors…

With the renovation of the building and the redesign of the Wien Museum's (the City Museum of Vienna) permanent exhibition, the Nazi period is now finally being told as part of the city's history after decades of neglect. The education department was thus faced with the task of including these important and multifaceted topics in our educational…

The dual pandemic that started in 2020, COVID-19 and events revealing systemic racism, has increased awareness about violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the United States. This article describes how the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, a "museum without walls," collaborated with a group of…

The recent popularity of museum mash-ups exemplifies fatigue, if not dissatisfaction with "traditional" conversation, discussion, and dialogue-based interpretation that has become standard for many art museum educators. This article looks back at the late 1960s and early 1970s when a similar dissatisfaction with standard approaches…

In 2015 "Mimi's Family: Photographs by Matthew Clowney" opened to the public at Boston Children's Museum. The first of its kind, this groundbreaking exhibit told the story of a family with a transgender grandparent through a series of large, color photographs. This case study describes the process, challenges, and outcomes of creating…

This case study describes the process of designing and implementing a museum school program about race and suggests a number of recommendations for creating meaningful interactions with visitors about complex topics. Education staff at the San Diego Museum of Man set out to teach students about race as a social construct, sharing science that…

In the summer of 2016, the Staten Island Museum was challenged with developing an audience for its new building and location. With exhibitions that change infrequently, programs became the way guests accessed museum resources. Museum staff reinvented the personality of museum programming while putting its new location "on the map." The…

The Palo Alto Art Center sought a solution to the challenge that loyal family audiences, visiting weekly for art studio classes, rarely visit the contemporary art exhibition galleries. This article relates the experience of using the human-centered design process, often called Design Thinking, as the methodology to create a solution for family…

Little research is available concerning the use of technology to connect non-mobile senior adults with museums. This paper explores the viability of Interactive Virtual Learning (IVL) programs to gauge the interests, preferences, and needs of the older adults. The authors drew from personal experiences presenting such programs to seniors and held…