Lisa,

There may be a problem in the way you phrased the question. Museums,
science centers, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, walks in the park
with your grandfather, helping your mother change the oil on the family car
and holding the flashlight for dad as he changes a fuse, are all important,
though sometimes intangible filaments of learning and growth.

We put too much emphasis on the importance of formal education, which is
always compartmentalized, and often do not value at all the kinds of things
we learn as we go about living our lifes.

It should be remembered that schools in them selves are not important at
all. They exisit only to facilitate learning.

Museums and the myriad of other paths of learning do not exist for
schools. If your question remains as stated, I would have to say, based
on my wierd view of the world, that, no museums are not at all important
to elementary school education. But if I could change the question just a
little I would have to say that museums are an important part of the web
of learning and they do provide an important path. Of course, in a museum
setting that important path is constructed in each individule visitor.