ABSTRACT
As adults and experienced museum goers, we have certain expectations when we visit
museums and science centers. For example, at a museum we expect to see objects whose
value is intrinsic, perhaps because of their uniqueness for being one of a kind, or their
history of ownership, or the cultural stories they tell. In contrast, at a science center, we
expect to see objects that demonstrate scientific concepts, objects that often are built
specifically for that purpose. The meaning of objects depends not only on the nature,
history, and purpose of the object itself, but also on the ways it is interpreted by the
visitor. Gurian’s (1999) analysis of objects and how people think about them conveys
these ideas very clearly. For example, Gurian pointed out that a bowl, considered to be
cheap tableware in its day, may assume significance if it were present in the death camps
of the Holocaust. Here, it is the story that makes the object important to the museum
visitor. In contrast, an object that is intentionally designed to demonstrate a concept, like
an exhibit in a science center, may well be unique, but, as Gurian noted, it has no cognate
in the outside world. In both examples, the visitor has a role to play in making meaning
from the object, and the nature of that meaning depends, at least in part, on the prior
knowledge and experience the visitor has in relation to the object.
