Fossil Mysteries / Misterios fósiles

Description and goals

Fossil Mysteries is about…

The changing life and landscapes
of one place through time—
southern California and Baja California—
from dinosaur times to the Ice Ages.

Science is a process of asking questions and looking for answers.
Look at rocks and fossils for evidence of past life and landscapes.
Explore mysteries: What is it? How old is it? What did it eat? How did it evolve? Why did it go extinct?

Abundant fossils, multimedia, interactive exhibits, immersive environments, original murals by William Stout.

Themes: Evolution, extinction, ecology, Earth processes

Bilingual: English / Spanish

Development process and challenges

Collaborative team effort

Challenges:
Negotiating content and presentation
Agreeing on how best to serve the audience
Fundraising

Lessons learned, mistakes we made (and what we did about them)

Although the exhibit team articulated a vision of visitor learning that included affective, sensory, and conceptual learning, it took a long time for everyone to truly embrace this vision in everyday practice. We invested a lot of time in building common ground, documentation, and communication.

We integrated evaluation throughout the process, but in retrospect, I wish we had done even more evaluation. Interactive exhibits and exhibit text would have benefited from more testing.

Regarding the bilingual aspect of the exhibition, we used the translation process to refine both English and Spanish text. We composed the text in English first, then interpreted the text in Spanish. We found that concise, active language translates best. We committed significant resources to writing, editing, and proofreading the Spanish text, similar to the process with the English text.