PLSCI 5825

Museum and Park Interpretation

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

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.
• Apply the interpretive planning process to create a product in a museum, zoo, botanic garden, or other cultural institution.
• Articulate how foundational research in the discipline informs the best practices of interpretive planning and development.
• Demonstrate the effectiveness of applying interpretive best practices and their foundational research when communicating to a general audience (or audience at a museum, park, or other cultural institution).

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