Climate change at home: the impact of environmental museum exhibits on sense of place

Abstract

The reality of climate change has become impossible to ignore, and increasingly people are asking what can be done to strengthen individual and community-level climate action. The purpose of this study was to explore whether and how museum exhibits that are focused on their local environment can influence people’s relationship to that environment, particularly when it comes to community involvement and environmental concern. “Relationship to environment” was framed using place attachment, a psychological theory defined as the complex, emotional connections people form with the specific places they find meaningful. To investigate whether museums could influence place attachment, 162 visitors at three distinct institutions in the Puget Sound region—a natural history museum, an art museum, and an aquarium—were surveyed 4-6 weeks after their museum visit. Findings revealed that even a month after visiting an exhibit, people largely still remembered and felt impacted by the exhibits’ local focus and environmental messaging. They had been thinking about, talking about, and noticing things that reminded them of the exhibit in their daily lives, and, perhaps most importantly, they felt the exhibit had positively impacted their connection to their local area as well as their feelings of environmental concern and stewardship motivation. These results are encouraging; they demonstrate that people want to know about environmental impacts and make what difference they can in their communities.