Investigating Visitor Activity on a Safari Drive

Despite increasing studies focusing on the visitor experience in zoological collections, minimal attention has been paid to visitor activity when driving through safari parks. The dwell time of visitors at exhibits within a traditional zoo setting has offered a good method to measure exhibit and species popularity, but studying visitors on a safari drive offers a unique set of challenges, with factors such as road length skewing a basic dwell time measurement. Therefore, the current study proposes that average speed offers a robust means to investigate visitor activity on a safari drive. Average speed was found to be significantly different depending on species exhibited, with primates and felids eliciting slower speeds and bovids and cervids faster speeds. This result broadly mirrors that of traditional zoo studies where primates elicit longer dwell times. Future safari drive studies could help inform decisions made on a safari drive for aspects such a collection planning, drive layout and exhibit design. Harnessing tracking technology, e.g., GPS, alongside more diverse methodologies, such as questionnaires and multi-institutional approaches, would further allow more robust conclusions to be drawn.

Tinkering With Testing: Understanding How Museum Program Design Advances Engineering Learning Opportunities for Children

Using a design-based research approach, we studied ways to advance opportunities for children and families to engage in engineering design practices in an informal educational setting. 213 families with 5–11-year-old children were observed as they visited a tinkering exhibit at a children’s museum during one of three iterations of a program posing an engineering design challenge. Children’s narrative reflections about their experience were recorded immediately after tinkering. Across iterations of the program, changes to the exhibit design and facilitation provided by museum staff corresponded to increased families’ engagement in key engineering practices. In the latter two cycles of the program, families engaged in the most testing, and in turn, redesigning. Further, in the latter cycles, the more children engaged in testing and retesting during tinkering, the more their narratives contained engineering-related content. The results advance understanding and the evidence base for educational practices that can promote engineering learning opportunities for children.

Passive design strategies for medium-format retail buildings in Toronto toward NZE Using Ecotect® Analysis 2011, with a case-study of a retail building in Toronto, ON

This paper studied passive design strategies available for medium-format retail buildings in Toronto. An existing retail building, designed by the researcher and built in 2014, was chosen as a case study. A framework of four models to show incremental improvements was created and multiple passive design strategies were applied to each model. The framework targeted four energy goals. Each goal represented a level of higher efficiency using Energy Use Intensity (EUI). Each of the four design models was simulated using Ecotect® and all results documented and analyzed. At the end of last model’s analysis, an architectural design project to exhibit design strategies was created. There are perhaps two significant points that the study has achieved. First point was the identification of key passive strategies that can be implemented in retail buildings in Toronto. The second was the methodology by which incremental improvements with pre-set energy targets can be followed with validated results.

Passive design strategies for medium-format retail buildings in Toronto toward NZE Using Ecotect® Analysis 2011, with a case-study of a retail building in Toronto, ON

This paper studied passive design strategies available for medium-format retail buildings in Toronto. An existing retail building, designed by the researcher and built in 2014, was chosen as a case study. A framework of four models to show incremental improvements was created and multiple passive design strategies were applied to each model. The framework targeted four energy goals. Each goal represented a level of higher efficiency using Energy Use Intensity (EUI). Each of the four design models was simulated using Ecotect® and all results documented and analyzed. At the end of last model’s analysis, an architectural design project to exhibit design strategies was created. There are perhaps two significant points that the study has achieved. First point was the identification of key passive strategies that can be implemented in retail buildings in Toronto. The second was the methodology by which incremental improvements with pre-set energy targets can be followed with validated results.

Components and Mechanisms: How Children Talk About Machines in Museum Exhibits

The current investigation examines children’s (N = 61; 4- to 8-year old) learning about a novel machine in a local history museum. Parent–child dyads were audio-recorded as they navigated an exhibit that contained a novel artifact: a coffee grinder from the turn of the 20th century. Prior to entering the exhibit, children were randomly assigned to receive an experimental “component” prompt that focused their attention on the machine’s internal mechanisms or a control “history” prompt. First, we audio-recorded children and their caregivers while they freely explored the exhibit, and then, we measured children’s learning by asking them two questions in a test phase. Children of all ages, regardless of the prompt given, discussed most aspects of the machine, including the whole machine, its parts, and, to a lesser extent, its mechanisms. In the test phase, older children recalled more information than younger children about all aspects of the machine and appeared more knowledgeable to adult coders. Overall, this suggests that children of all ages were motivated to discuss all aspects of a machine, but some scaffolding may be necessary to help the youngest children take full advantage of these learning opportunities. While the prompts did not significantly influence the number of children who discussed the machine’s mechanisms, children who received the component prompt were rated as more knowledgeable about the machine in the test phase, suggesting that this prompt influenced what they learned. Implications for visitor experience and exhibit design are discussed.

Effects of Facilitation vs. Exhibit Labels on Caregiver-Child Interactions at a Museum Exhibit

In museum settings, caregivers support children's learning as they explore and interact with exhibits. Museums have developed exhibit design and facilitation strategies for promoting families' exploration and inquiry, but these strategies have rarely been contrasted. The goal of the current study was to investigate how prompts offered through staff facilitation vs. labels printed on exhibit components affected how family groups explored a circuit blocks exhibit, particularly whether children set and worked toward their own goals, and how caregivers were involved in children's play. We compared whether children, their caregivers, or both set goals as they played together, and the actions they each took to connect the circuits. We found little difference in how families set goals between the two conditions, but did find significant differences in caregivers' actions, with caregivers in the facilitation condition making fewer actions to connect circuits while using the exhibit, compared to caregivers in the exhibit labels condition. The findings suggest that facilitated and written prompts shape the quality of caregiver-child interactions in distinct ways.

Um museu, duas salas e os indígenas

O artigo expõe de que formas a História e a Cultura Mbyá-Guarani são retratadas no espaço do Museu Júlio de Castilhos. O objetivo do texto é compreender os papéis que a instalação da nova Sala Indígena e do plano de ensino “Os Mbyá-Guarani e o Milho” possuem enquanto espaço e ação pedagógica de Ensino de História e como eles respondem às recentes concepções de Educação das Relações Étnico-Raciais. Para isso é comparada a montagem e a expografia da antiga Sala Farroupilha com o novo espaço, a Sala Indígena. Também é feita a análise da Sala Indígena e do plano de ensino sob a luz da Lei 11.645/2008. Conclui-se que essa lei tem papel fundamental no fomento à formação de educadoras e ao Ensino de História Indígena.Palavras-chave: Educação Patrimonial; História Indígena; Indigenização de museus; Museu Júlio de Castilhos. AbstractThe article explores how the history and culture of Mbyá-Guarani people are portrayed in the Júlio de Castilhos Museum. Following the teaching plan Os Mbyá-Guarani e o Milho, the aim is to comprehend the roles that the installation of the new Indigenous Room plays as a place for pedagogical action and history teaching, and how these roles respond to recent notions on the teaching of ethnical and racial relations. Thus, the installation, as well as the exhibit design of the old Farroupilha Room, was compared with the new Indigenous Room. The analysis of the Indigenous Room and the teaching plan is further carried out under Brazilian law 11.645/2008. The conclusion points to the Brazilian law 11.645/2008 as playing a pivotal role in promoting the formation of teachers and in the teaching of Indigenous History.Keywords: Patrimonial Education; Indigenous History; Indigenization of museums; Júlio de Castilhos Museum.