PLSCI 5825

Museum and Park Interpretation

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

This class is for students who are interested in receiving an overview of interpretive planning. Interpretation is a mission-based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and meanings inherent in the resource. This theory-driven process can be applied to a wide variety of opportunities to communicate to the public. Professionals who apply this communication process develop interpretive materials for museums, science centers, historic sites, zoos, aquaria, botanic gardens, national and state parks and other cultural attractions. In this course, students will collaborate with staff at Cornell Botanic Gardens to create interpretive media including but not limited to signage, exhibits, written material, or self-guided tours.

When Offered Spring.

• Describe and demonstrate what interpretation is and how it is used as a tool for communicating science and other subjects of focus in a cultural institution.
• Articulate the theory and practice of the interpretive approach to effective communication.
• Explain how the interpretive approach is applied in a museum, zoo, botanic garden or other cultural institution.
• Identify professions in the interpretive or related fields.
• Describe the various methods of interpretive evaluation and practice at least one evaluation technique.
• List the steps and their importance in the interpretive planning process.
• Apply the interpretive planning process to create a product in a museum, zoo, botanic garden or other cultural institution.
• Read interpretive research articles, write summaries of the articles, interpret their relevance to the syllabus topics and present the findings to the class.
• Incorporate and demonstrate best practices grounded in the assigned research papers and submit an accompanying paper that outlines the connections between the research, best practices, and the presentation.

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