Educational Programs
Education is the responsibility of a museum to society, and its foremost duty. The ultimate purpose of a museum is to attract visitors, encourage their curiosity, and then expand their horizons. If it can be said that the collection is the “heart” of a museum, then education is its “spirit”. The museum works to expand contact with visitors at many levels and through a variety of approaches, to create an effective learning environment. The educational programs of this museum are meant to complement the public’s everyday or real life experiences, as well as to satisfy individual interests and needs. Through the use of exhibits, its collection, research achievements, objects, specimens, models and instruction, the museum’s educational programs address current issues, cultivate the habit of using the museum’s facilities and raise the public’s interest in science.
With the above concepts in mind, educational programs are designed for teachers, general audiences, student groups, and families. The public is able to access the museum‘s education function through such channels as symposiums, lectures, demonstrations, guided tours, field trips, children’s activities, traveling events, community services, consultation services and publications, etc., all of which are extremely popular. To resolve the disparities in access to science education between urban and rural areas, the museum provides subsidies to elementary and junior high school students in remote and central areas of Taiwan to visit the museum to take advantage of its educational resources firsthand. In addition, outreach programs are brought into elementary and junior high schools, and special education schools, in which students are unable to visit the museum, allowing them the opportunity to learn from the museum’s exhibits and educational programs.