Our education department is really enamored of what they call "scavenger
hunts" which are worksheets designed to be carried around an exhibit. Kids
are supposed to search the exhibit to fill in the blanks i.e. "Name the
main ingredients of cigarrettes" On some of our exhibits, the teachers post
the question numbers right next to the exhibit text that contains the
answer!

Does anyone else out there use this kind of thing?

Is there any evidence that kids learn more from an exhibit when they use a
worksheet than when they don't? To my admittedly biased eyes, it seems like
what happens is a few kids dutifully do the worksheet.The rest of the kids
copy off the kids who are doing it. As soon as the worksheets are
completed, the kids stop paying attention to the exhibit.

From an exhibits standpoint I don't like them because (1) why did we spend
all of this time creating an engaging, self-guided, informative exhibit if
the education department going to tell kids what to look at and what they
can ignore (2) aren't museums supposed to be different from school? (3)
worksheets only work for some kinds of learners, and we work hard to make
exhibits that work for everybody and (4) why give kids pencils when pencils
can scratch graphics, jam keyboards, etc.

To me these things seem like a lazy teacher's answer to museum education.
Now they're even handing them out to casual visitors! Arrrgh! Thanks for
letting me vent. Can anyone defend these things?

Sharyn Horowitz, The Health Museum of Cleveland
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8911 Euclid Avenue * Cleveland, OH 44106 * (216) 231-5010 * fax 231-5129
http://www.healthmuseum.org