TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE PART IV: ROADBLOCKS AND OBSTACLES

Museums on Earth | Defne Inceoglu

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Illustration courtesy of Defne Inceoglu.

Last time, we looked at examples of how international museums are speaking to the crisis. On this, my last post for Museums on Earth, I wanted to spend some time thinking about what sorts of obstacles lay ahead for museums.

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Please reflect on your past and current public engagement on climate change. Your work matters, and it matters that we all perform at new levels. Allow these examples to embolden you to reach farther and to advocate in your organization, and in the field, for similarly creative and ambitious projects, then please share your learning and results widely. We must all learn and share as much as we can, as fast as we can, to create scalable and scaled change in ways that support and repair our climate. We must work at a rate never before attempted.

Sarah Sutton and Cynthia Robinson, "Museums and Public Climate Action" in the Journal of Museum Education vol. 45 (January 2020): 3.

The Journal of Museum Education's (JME) latest issue is dedicated to Museums and Climate Change - another addition of growing scholarship around museum and climate action. 

I close this chapter with more questions than answers. It is, of course, important to ask questions. Questions lead to problem-solving, discussion and action. Without addressing some very core issues, we risk overlooking issues or embracing naivety. 

I identify the following four issues below that I believe, through my research, to be the main obstacles that museums will face going forward:

Obstacle 1 |  Fighting apathy

Obstacle 2 | Funding and donorship

Obstacle 3 | Teaching accessible science-literacy

Obstacle 4 | Moving away from neutrality 

1 | Fighting apathy

It is important to address apathy. From my visitor research at the Royal Ontario Museum, I noted that visitors do not feel invigorated to take climate action if they are burdened with the sort of esoteric or existential reality of climate change. This, I claim, can lead people to apathy. One way to combat this is to ensure that our exhibits and programming focus more on local, community efforts - meetups, conversations, panels, presentations, interactive outings facilitated by the museum, etc. This sort of programming can look like a lot of things - however integrating more social action and conversation, as well as providing tangible resources for visitors. I think this is a large challenge, as the ability to create ongoing engagement and enrichment for visitors is sometimes a coin toss. Talk to your audience, your visitors - see what they want to see the museum doing - bring in new voices. Focus on real efforts being made by community groups and members in your cities and towns. 

This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Credit: Luthi, D., et al.. 2008; Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010; Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record.) Image courtesy of NASA's climate change website.

2 | Funding and donorship

Funding is always an uncertainty. Museum fundraising is tricky and complicated (as Samantha's column (Fun)draising for Musings spends time talking about). How do you invigorate your donors to support new, climate-focused exhibits or programming? Your institutions may not necessarily be science-oriented - art museums, galleries, historic houses, etc., can have different types of fundraising or donorship strategies that don't include convincing stakeholders to fund climate-focused content. 

Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers and the expansion of seawater as it warms. The first graph tracks the change in sea level since 1993 as observed by satellites. This satellite data shows that the average sea levels rise 3.3 millimetres per year. Image courtesy of NASA.

3 | Teaching accessible science-literacy

Literacy matters, accessibility matters, and equity matters. If the content of your exhibitions is difficult to interpret, or if you do not provide a baseline for visitors, it can quickly become confusing or irrelevant. Science-literacy is not just about understanding graphs or subscribing to journals - you cannot expect all visitors to your museum to have these skills or wants. Instead, focus on taking steps to understand where visitors are coming from and what their education levels are. This way, you can tailor your content. It doesn't hurt to test your content, either. 

Take the Royal Ontario Museum's Blue Whale exhibition, which ran from March-September 2017. This exhibition was enormously popular - utilizing storytelling and community strategies to create a successful exhibit. 

This chart is what I am getting at: accessible information, explanation and resources for further research. Phew! Image courtesy of NASA.

4 |  Moving away from neutrality 

It is impossible to assume that you can achieve neutrality when talking about climate change. I talked about this in Part I, and as the months have passed it has really dawned on me that taking a stance, challenging visitors, and backing up your work with up to date literature and science is the only way to truly invigorate real change. 

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That's all, folks! Stay safe out there.