Museum : Activities and Programs to Support Environmental Education and Its Role as Information Center

随着2天周末越来越被社会所接受，博物馆开始被期望发挥社会教育机构的作用。此外，随着人们对环境教育重要性的认识越来越明显，博物馆也被期望在环境教育中发挥一部分作用。本研究主要关注以下两点浅析博物馆环境教育的内容与方法。(1)对该主题在世界范围内的现状进行了研究和分析。(2)根据上述研究结果，对博物馆如何开展实际环境教育的内容、方法和受众进行了探讨。(3)在美国各博物馆举办研讨会及工作坊，邀请环境教育工作者。(4)开发出模块式教材，用于实际教学。(5)对博物馆参观者进行调查，了解他们对博物馆环境教育的期望。(6)在博物馆举办环境教育教师研讨会，研究影响。2博物馆环境教育支持中心信息系统开发的可能性及有效性分析。(1)针对博物馆利用互联网，充当WWW服务器发送信息的情况，开发虚拟现实方法引入视觉图像的软件程序和基础实验。(2)从WWW服务器收集信息，转换成数字图像并组织成数据库。(3)基于上述研究成果，支持在茨城县自然博物馆公园安装WWW服务器并向公众开放。

With 2 days weekend becoming more accepted around the society, museums become to be expected to play the role of societal educational institute. Also, with the recognition of the importance of environmental education becomes more visible, museums become to be expected to take a part of the role in environmental education. This study focused on the items, which concerns about following 2 points.1 Analysis of the content and the method of environmental education at museums.(1) Conducted a research and analysis regarding the current situation of this theme around the world.(2) Conducted a discussion on how the actual environment education can be carried out at museums content, method and audience based on the findings of the above research.(3) Held a seminar and workshop inviting environmental educators at museums in the USA.(4) Developed a module style educational material that would be used in the actual education.(5) Conducted a survey to museum visitors on their expectations on the environmental education at museums.(6) Held a seminar at museums for environmental education teachers and studied the affect,2 Analysis of the possibility of development of information system for environmental education support cente red in museums and its effectiveness.(1) Development of soft program and fundamental experiment for implementing virtual reality method as a way to introduce visual images in case museums would use Internet and play a role to send information as WWW server.(2) Collected information from WWW server, converted into digital images and organized them into data base.(3) Based on the outcomes of the above research, supported to install a WWW server at Museum Park (Nature museum Ibaraki Prefecture) and opened to the public.