IMPROVING VISITOR LEARNING ABOUT EVOLUTION IN A NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

Americans as a whole do not know much about evolution, or about what scientists think about evolution. But Americans do go to natural history museums, by the millions. And so in these times when evolution is so much in the news, there is a significant opportunity for these museums to do more to encourage their visitors to learn more about this crucial idea.

In 2003 the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) opened the Museum of the Earth. The Museum's permanent exhibits have a separate exhibit on evidence and mechanisms for evolution and a strong evolutionary theme throughout. We have developed a training program for volunteer docents that consists of a short Guide for Docents (available at www.priweb.org) and one-hour training seminars by a staff scientist. We also opened these sessions to the general public free of charge.

Three years into the program, the responses have been many and varied, from visitors, docents, and other institutions. We have learned that few museums have formal training for their volunteers in how to explain evolution to visitors. Many larger museums apparently offer no such training at all, or consider that it is included in the general orientation provided to all volunteers. Smaller museums appear to be more interested in providing explicit training in evolution. Some told us of their own difficult encounters with visitors; others said they wanted to be proactive and develop programs before an incident occurred. Some reported difficulty in convincing their administration that this was a subject they should be involved in.

We have learned that visitors are very interested in the subjects of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, particularly after recent events in Kansas and Pennsylvania. Our most common experiences are simple and sincere questions about evidence for evolution, the meaning of intelligent design, and methods of geological dating (which is not directly relevant to evolution per se, but always comes up). A common observation is that visitors often do not know how or what to ask about these topics. We encourage our docents to gently solicit questions from visitors who seem especially interested, and to really listen to their queries before trying to answer. Feedback from both visitors and docents goes into ongoing revisions of the Guide.