At 18:29 Jim Moskowitz wrote:

>What science/natural history museum exhibits about natural disasters exist?
>Is there a central index where I could look up this kind of question
>without pestering the collective intelligence of museum-l?

I am not familiar with any index. Just one example. Last week I visited
London with a group of students. The Natural History Museum has in its new
Earth Galleries exhibition an interesting display on the Kolbe 1995 earth
quake. This display gave rise to some discussion about ethics. The exhibit
itself is well done, I think. But, with 5000 death, I hate sentences like
"Feel, hear and see what happens when parts of the Earth's crust begin to
move against each other in our EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCE". We observed hundreds
of young and very young school children that are driven through the
exhibition like sheep. For most of them the 'Earthquake Experience' was
great fun. What was communicated was obviously not what was intended.

Dr Peter van Mensch
senior lecturer of theoretical museology and museum ethics
Reinwardt Academie
Dapperstraat 315
1093 Amsterdam
(the Netherlands)

tel.     +31 20 6922111
fax      +31 20 6926836
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