A Simple Addition to Nature Center Exhibits to Enhance Meaning and Memory Making
A Simple Addition to Nature Center Exhibits to Enhance Meaning and Memory Making
July 11, 2024 by Taylor Studios
Status Quo Bias (SQB) is the human preference for choosing the known over the unknown. When confronted with choices, people disproportionately gravitate towards familiar options. The less familiar the option, the riskier it feels. The term was coined in the late 1980s, in the paper “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making.”
This predisposition to choose the status quo got me thinking about nature center exhibits. Could SQB account, at least partially, for the conformity of nature center exhibits?
If so, it is the role of exhibit designers and content developers to shoulder creative bravery and bring fresh ideas to the client—ideas clients may never have contemplated. Unique exhibit ideas and their enumerated advantages are features of a well-conceived exhibit design process. What site would choose not to stand apart from all others if provided a viable opportunity?
There is a design approach to do just that and it does not eliminate any visitors’ favorite nature center exhibits: bird songs, binoculars, animal pelts, live animals, dioramas, etc.
The Story’s the Thing
Humans have shared compelling and meaningful stories long before the first nature center was built. Google “science of storytelling” if you have a month of free time to rabbit-hole the physiological and mental effects of story—from endorphin release, to cortisol reduction, to enhanced content recall.
Freeman Tilden understood the power of story. In chapter four, “The Story’s the Thing,” from Tilden’s Interpreting Our Heritage, he states:
Utilizing Tilden’s “devices of language” in nature center exhibits can offer extraordinary, memorable visitor experiences that transcend the status quo.
Here is a thought experiment. Imagine a nature center uses an overarching story as its language device. The story is seamless, thought-provoking, and present throughout the entirety of the gallery. Every diorama, every touchable pelt, every bird call exhibit serves to further the grand narrative, which starts in the lobby and continues on the exterior grounds. Every element of the site is utilized to propel interpretation.
Perhaps a narrator presents the story throughout. Perhaps the story is revealed through diary entries. Perhaps an “enemy” and “hero” character are involved. The options are as limitless as the storytelling techniques available.
If you are looking to distinguish your nature center exhibits from others, let’s bypass SQB and choose the road less travelled…together.
A quick note about central themes. A nature center’s central theme provides the content focus of exhibits. Central themes do not dictate the method used to reveal content focus.