How the Philosophy of the Exploration Area for Families with Children “ComPaSS” at the National Museum of Nature and Science is Reflected in Its Exhibits

Abstract

In order to examine the learning support for visitors to a museum’s exhibits, it is necessary to clarify how the philosophy of an exhibition room is reflected in its exhibits. In this study, we attempted to clarify how the philosophy is reflected in developing an exhibition room for young children, by taking up “ComPaSS” in the National Museum of Nature and Science and one of its characteristic exhibits, “Kahaku-no-Mado”, as a case study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with museum staff and field surveys to determine how the museum tried to support the communication between children and parents and identify the means and intentions behind this support. The interviews show three ways to design exhibits to support communication between children and parents. First, select specimens that are attractive to young children. Second, position the specimens to take advantage of the differences in the perspectives of adults and children, and third, use exhibition labels with short conversational texts. We showed similarities with previous studies as well as findings not found in previous studies.