Targeted audience:
This program is designed for pre-service and in-service K-12 teachers and natural history educators

Program objective:
The program focus is on developing a mini-museum and how development and use of a mini-museum can be used to teach scientific methods of inquiry, strategies for problem solving, how to collect information through observation and experimentation, and then organize this information into possible solutions.

Program description and activities:
The program is designed to assist K-12 teachers and natural history educators provide quality education that promotes scientific and technological literacy. Emphasis will be placed on how to build and use a mini-museum to support current school curriculum. The program will provide guidelines on how to develop a mini-museum and use it in the classroom to stimulate interest in natural history topics. Ideas for hands-on activities using a mini-museum and information on how to locate additional educational resources will be provided.

Program outline:

What is a 'mini-museum' of natural history?
A mini-museum of natural history is a collection of objects and associated information that can be used to learn about natural history.

What is a good topic for a mini-museum?
Topics for a mini-museum can be limited to one particular group of organisms (i.e. birds, trees, seashells, insects), cover a particular habitat (i.e. backyard animals, marine mammals, animals of the night), or focus on a topic in the news (i.e. endangered species, rain forests, volcanoes, dinosaurs).

How big is a mini-museum?
As small as a shoe box or as large as your classroom.

Who builds the mini-museum?
Although teachers can prepare a mini-museum for their students, the greatest educational benefits are realized with active student participation. Students can be asked to find objects for the mini-museum or the objects can be provided by the teacher. Each student can be assigned a topic to research and build a mini-museum on or they can be assigned to work on one particular object in the mini-museum. Their task can be as simple as developing labels for the objects or as complex as making an exhibit, writing a scientific key or building a web page.

What can be done with a mini-museum?

• Have students use the objects for show-and-tell
• Have students find and report on news articles that relate to the mini-museum
• Have students present a report to the class on what they have found
• Have students do experiments that relate to the mini-museum
• Exhibit the mini-museum at the school's earthday or science expo
• Display the mini-museum in the school's trophy case
• Have other classes 'tour' your classroom mini-museum
• Swap mini-museums with another classes and schools

What other topics can be incorporated into building a mini-museum?

• Reading - about the organisms, ecology, human interactions and current events
• Geography - where are the objects from - where else are they found
• Math - size and shape - growth - statistical analysis
• Biology - adaptations & survival - how do the animals fly, hear, eat
• Ecology - how orgainsims relate to each other and to humans
• Art - use the objects to inspire art projects

Last modified July 30, 1999