Taking time to listen and learn: a museum partnership designed to engage rural audiences in climate change conversations

Abstract

ABSTRACT A research-practice partnership between museum-based educators and scientists, learning researchers, and rural community members was designed to support climate change education in public settings. We consider the museum’s role in this work, tracing how the partnership built upon lessons learned from prior work, and used asset-based strategies to learn from the rural community. We present a survey of rural climate beliefs, interests and understandings that was used to surface starting points for our collective design work. The network’s first public-facing event helped the group to check our assumptions about a perceived “spiral of silence” that can shut down discourse and engagement around contentious issues, and provided opportunities to gauge the community’s interest in locally relevant climate change conversations. We describe how museums can address power and position to build trust with rural partners and audiences, and to extend their impact on urgent socio-scientific issues.