Posted: September 14th, 2017
Museum display assignment guidelines You have been contracted by the newly-founded Royal Rainforest Organization
of Ontario Museum (The RROOM), to assist in developing an educational display on tropical forests – specifically
focused on surprising natural history details, “uncommon knowledge”, and new discoveries. Your contribution
should consist of (1) a title for the display; (2) a 300-word summary of an important concept or generalization
about tropical forests, written as a display legend for the museum audience; (3) a 1-2 page description and
rationale (and, optionally, a graphical mock-up) of the display that will accompany your display legend. The
rationale should also include at least one reference to a peer-reviewed journal article as a source (you may also
use the textbook or other resources as sources, but must find at least one journal article article). The 300-word
summary should be written simply, and should avoid technical jargon (but may include definitions of key words or
concepts if necessary). Remember: the idea is that thousands of museum-goers would read this!
The 300-word summary should be the best possible example of your writing: every word should be carefully chosen.
You can optionally upload the RROOM assignments to a discussion board on the course Blackboard page, where they
will be available to the class for comment (and you can receive up to three extra-credit points for doing so and
for providing comments on other students’ contributions. Bonus points will only be given for comments that are
well-informed, critical and helpful). Note that your score for the assignment (display plus bonus points) cannot
be more than 15.
How to come up with a good museum display idea You need to do some research to come up with a good museum display
idea — so coming up with the basic idea will likely take more time than developing the display or writing the
300-word summary.
The ideal display idea would be a new discovery of scientific and/or conservation importance, but also something
relatively easily grasped by a general audience. There are numerous possibilities in our textbook, but it may be
more efficient to find some truly new by looking at tropical biology and conservation news sources and journals.
Both science and policy/human topics are permissible.
You should avoid museum displays that too broad or are common knowledge. For example, simply stating that
rainforests have high biodiversity would be both too broad, and common knowledge.
Place an order in 3 easy steps. Takes less than 5 mins.