Course Details

Course offered Spring 2025

HONORS 222 D: Natural History and Culture Museums in the 21st Century (NSc, W)

HONORS 222 D: Natural History and Culture Museums in the 21st Century (NSc, W)

SLN 15195 (View UW registration info »)

Melissa Frey (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Office: Burke Museum, Room 203E, Box 353010
Phone: 206-221-7170
Email: freyma@uw.edu
Lane Eagles (Information School)
Email: lmeagles@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 24 students

Traditionally, natural history and culture museums have served both as a repository for collection objects, and as a place of exhibition, education, and engagement. Today, visitors are still captivated by these museum collections, drawn in by dinosaurs, whales, masks and canoes. However, most natural history and culture museums are able to share only a small fraction of their vast collections and their in-depth research. A key challenge is to connect visitors to museum collections, to share the relevance of museum research, and to make museums matter. The aim of this seminar is to consider both the public faces (exhibit/education programs) and the behind-the-scenes spaces (collections/research) of a modern natural history and culture museum. Students will be challenged to work across cross-disciplinary art and science methodology, and to explore how these two approaches interact within museum spaces. We will assess how museum collections and their stories can be shared in creative and novel ways, and together, what they can teach us about our communities and ourselves.