THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF INDIANAPOLIS: A HISTORY OF LEVERAGING FIELD EXPEDITIONS AND LAB WORK TO ENHANCE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is closing in on its 100 year history. Its unique mission, as the world’s largest children’s museum, helps it to provide public engagement with the geosciences. Over the years the focus and intensity of this outreach have evolved, responding to the changes in public perception, developing technology, ongoing research and partnership opportunities presented by the scientific community.

During the 1930s, museum staff members drove equipment laden Model T’s on expeditions known as Prairie Treks. Indianapolis school children were given the chance to venture to the western United States and investigate the plants and wildlife of the region. Campers learned to identify birds and animals, pan for gold, make plaster casts of dinosaur footprints, and collect fossils and rocks.

Today over 1.2 million visitors each year can experience programs ranging from self-guided discovery to active participation with scientists and their current research. Thousands have joined dinosaur excavations in the rocks of the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota, prepped fossil materials in the Paleo Prep Lab, and have even assisted in collections based research. Museum staff members seek to highlight multidisciplinary research in order to communicate the latest discoveries in paleontology. By first encouraging and developing relationships with the scientific community we have enabled a much wider public involvement in the geosciences, reinforced by some of the most engaging dinosaur and other fossil exhibits in the country.

As people worry about the decline in the status of museums, we strive to remain relevant and engage the public in scientific discoveries. While others may decry digital marketing and social media as ephemeral distractions, they are wonderful tools to gain public attention. Often exposure to these media encourage people to seek more substantive experiences – something which museums and the geoscience community can readily supply.