Museums of Science and Technology
Science and technology museums have the power to inspire and educate millions of visitors each year. As mediators between expert scientists and the general public, museums have the responsibility to provide informed and balanced exhibits. Ethics are embedded in museum decisions, from determining what objects to collect to what exhibits to mount and what to say about them. This discussion examines the long history of science and technology museums and raises some of the ethical questions museums face, particularly how an educational mission is defined by the competing tensions of representation, political influence, funding, and entertainment.
From Cabinets of Curiosities to Science and Technology Centers
As showcases for scientific discoveries, technological marvels, and natural wonders, museums became popular across Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These palaces of the muses began as private collections for acquiring physical knowledge and became displays of individual wealth and power. As explorers brought back new curiosities from around the world, these collections were a systematic attempt to organize the explosion of new knowledge. A complete cabinet of curiosity would have one of everything in the world, organized and displayed in a continuum from the ordinary to the exotic, sometimes even including the imaginary.
This page contains 201 words.
Museums of Science and Technology article
Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 2,299 words
(approx. 8 pages at 300 words per page).
Order our Museum Article
