ABSTRACT
Although museums have a responsibility to offer educational opportunities to diverse audiences, statistics show that people who are most harmed by educational and societal inequities may never visit museums. This essay presents a model, developed by the Exploratorium's Studio for Public Spaces, for how science museums can meet people where they are, in public places, rather than asking people to visit them. The Transforming Informal Learning Landscapes (TILL) model integrates three components – science content, “placemaking,” and facilitation –for museums to cocreate with community members free, outdoor science learning experiences that engage people in learning relevant science skills and concepts. As an example, the Middle Ground exhibition, located in San Francisco's Civic Center, invites passersby to engage in activities about the social science of stereotyping, confirmation bias, compliance with authority, the bystander effect, and other concepts relevant to the Civic Center neighborhood. The exhibition is based on the Exploratorium's pedagogical approach that emphasizes learning about real phenomena through visitor interaction with exhibits and human facilitators. The essay concludes with a discussion about future directions and applications of the TILL model.
