CRUISIN' THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: ENGAGING THE PUBLIC IN PALEONTOLOGY AND ART

The dual roles of natural history museums, academic research and informal science education, are often in conflict within the organization. The ideal approach to graceful integration of these factions is developing an exhibit that appeals to the general public and museum membership while including intellectual contributions of the academics. At a university-based museum there is constant pressure to tell our research stories to the community, both off and on campus, as a way to justify the very existence of space-hungry collections. An opportunity to bridge this gap was presented to us at the Burke Museum, University of Washington, by creating an exhibit around the book Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway by Kirk Johnson (author) and Ray Troll (artist). Constraints on the final product included restricted space (200 m²) and that the intellectual content include educational components on the processes of evolution. The final exhibit was composed of original artwork and banners, matching fossils from our collections, one level of text focused on geologic processes, and another level on the science of paleontology. The result was a distinctly beautiful and creative exhibit built on a solid geoscience foundation. The traveling exhibit is reaching wide audiences in the Midwest and East Coast.

Assessment of visitor experience was conducted by two master’s students in our two-year museum studies program as their final thesis topic. Of the interviewed visitors, 85% had not been to the museum in the last 3 years and came specifically to see this exhibit. The Sweep Rate Index (SRI) was 135, indicating that the visitors were highly engaged in the exhibit content, and in word associations their top choices were “creative” and “educational”. This summative evaluation suggests that the Cruisin’ exhibit was able to present the topics of paleontology and geologic processes in an alternative way while successfully engaging new audiences and continuing to reach visitors with a deep interest in fossils.