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Youth and Science: “Not Your Average Workplace”—the Youth Science Center, Science Museum of Minnesota
Author(s) -
Roholt Ross Velure,
Steiner Mary Ann
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2005.tb00163.x
Subject(s) - positive youth development , center (category theory) , youth studies , sociology , media studies , psychology , gender studies , developmental psychology , chemistry , crystallography
This article describes the Youth Science Center at the Science Museum of Minnesota and tells the story of what happened when museum professionals began seeing young people as resources and not simply as an audience or a problem. This shift has had important consequences for the young people themselves. The case study examines both the history of the YSC and young people's descriptions of their experiences in the program. There are things to learn about the effectiveness of this approach in getting youth involved in museums, and about understanding how museums can become supportive sites of youth development.