Chapter 12 - Making Memories in Museums

Summary

In this chapter, we focus on the ways that parent–child conversations during and after hands-on museum exhibit experiences can advance children’s learning and retention of information about cultural practices, and science and engineering. The work draws on research guided by sociocultural theory from two partially intersecting literatures, one concerned with children’s memory for personally experienced events, including work by Ornstein and his colleagues, and the other focused on learning during family museum visits. Unique partnerships between university researchers and museum practitioners make our work possible.