ABSTRACT Geoheritage documentation is critical for the academic community, and thus incurs an expense to the general public, who may or may not feel the need to fund such an “academic” database. Fortunately, this documentation helps foster appreciation of geosites within a geotouristic framework and can inspire a nationalistic sense of pride, thus bringing about an economic incentive to countries actively involved in geoheritage research and documentation. Yet there remains a prejudice within academia that geoheritage is a descriptive field, is arbitrarily qualitative, and lacks the capacity to create new and important scientific discoveries. We present herein a description and discussion of the results of applying “cutting-edge” science in a geoheritage framework with ample examples from Greece and two case studies of its application. The first of these is The Aliakmon Legacy Project of Northern Greece that necessitated modern documentation to preserve its heritage base when plate tectonic global geoheritage localities were flooded. The second summarizes the geologic history of the Meteora World Heritage Site with an emphasis on how its long complex geologic history ultimately resulted in the Byzantine Monastic community. We propose this paper as a discussion model for the integration of primary geologic research with cultural heritage localities and emphasize that these promise to elevate geoheritage studies to a scale critical for documentation of human civilization itself. It is our opinion that geoheritage is capable of becoming a dynamic field of study in which documentation and preservation expands to integrate renewed multidisciplinary research that in turn comprises the scientific foundation of a “new” cutting-edge geologic field of study.

ABSTRACT Milwaukee Public Museum has been presenting scientific concepts to audiences for 134 years. The exhibit methods have moved beyond specimen display and beyond the museum walls. Today, museums bring science to the public and scientific community through searchable collections databases, contextual websites, and social media. The “Silurian Reef” exhibit, with associated collections, website, and online database are examples of the ways science, public audiences, and museums interact and how these interactions have evolved over the past 130 years. The Schoonmaker Reef in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, was the first fossil reef recognized in North America and attracted geologists such as James Hall (1811–1898), T.C. Chamberlin (1843–1928), and I.A. Lapham (1811–1875) to recognize its importance. Fossils from this locality and others in SE Wisconsin form the large Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) collection. The MPM Silurian diorama, reconstructing one of these reef ecosystems, was created in 1985 as part of the “Third Planet” exhibit. This was one of the earliest museum exhibits to present plate tectonics and the evolution of life as one story. MPM’s Silurian collections were central to published research on the biodiversity and ecology of Silurian communities (Watkins, 1993). The collections, research, and exhibit were the foundation for an innovative website; The Virtual Silurian Reef (VSR) was developed in 1997. The VSR is an educational outreach website that explores the significance of Silurian reefs and concepts of evolution, plate tectonics, and biodiversity. More recently, MPM, in partnership with the Field Museum, digitized our Silurian collections and created a searchable online database housed on a redesigned VSR. The collections, website, and searchable database have given academic researchers better access to specimens in both MPM and Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) in Chicago collections. A larger impact has been the broad audiences reached. The website and exhibit have been used in National Science Foundation–funded educational outreach, by educators, artists, and fossil-hunting kids. Images and text from the website and database are found on interpretive signs in local and state parks and on trails that overlook historic collecting localities. The fossil specimens have even been used to model bronze fossil play sculptures for a city park.

ABSTRACT LiveSci in the Valley of the Last Dinosaurs ( http://lastdinos.livesci.org/ ) was a website and social media presence that provided the global online community with unprecedented access to the exciting paleontological research happening in the remote badlands of North Dakota and Montana in the summer of 2016. A collaborative team of researchers, students, and citizen scientists from around the world excavated some of the last dinosaurs that ever walked the Earth, mapped the K/Pg boundary in high resolution, and uncovered fossils that show us how life recovered after the extinction of the dinosaurs. To engage the public in the ongoing process of scientific discovery, dedicated project staff and participating researchers posted videos, photos, blog entries, and social media content nearly every day during the seven-week field season. Researchers and science educators from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Denver Museum of Nature & Science, along with collaborators from Brooklyn College, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Yale Peabody Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Marmarth Research Foundation, were joined by young scientists and citizen scientist volunteers of all ages. The production team consisted of high school and college interns, public science outreach professionals, and research scientists. To expand the reach of the project, a bilingual intern maintained a parallel Spanish website. Hundreds of thousands of online viewers watched, contributed, and shared these authentic experiences with their communities during the live portion of the project, and many more continue to access the archived website and social media content. This project exemplifies how social media and real-time interaction with scientists have the potential to connect the public to science as it unfolds, removing myths and stereotypes about how science happens and who scientists are. Initiatives such as this one help to create citizens who are more connected to the process of science and who can use that understanding in their lives through more informed decision making.

ABSTRACT Natural history museums’ (NHMs) primary missions are to collect, curate, and research natural history objects (life, earth, human cultures, and other specimens), and to use them for public education and outreach. The museums have the potential to enhance lifelong science literacy in unique, direct ways based on the collections they house. Ever since 1683, NHMs have exhibited specimens and educated visitors. Now, thousands of NHMs operate across the globe in ~100 countries, but no two of them are alike. Each resembles the others in the primary missions but differs significantly in collection size and diversity, research efforts, staff size and tasks, styles, public displays, outreach, and education. NHMs are thus complicated businesses due to the wide variety of tasks, objectives, and audiences. Collections are the heart of a NHM, for everything depends on them. These collections are all biased for a number of reasons, but none of them could contain an example of every kind of natural history object. The big museums have the oldest and largest collections, while smaller NHMs have mostly local collections. Collections are further biased because only a small part of any of them can be exhibited; hence, specimens with certain attractive characteristics are selected for display and use in education and outreach. Many NHMs use replicas of specimens in occasional displays for a variety of reasons to enhance the visitor experience, chiefly to bring rare or fragile specimens to them. This is all normal and to be expected. The overall outreach aim of NHMs should be to encourage and provide lifelong learning for everyone. People who attend NHMs are mostly educated, and, in Europe and America, chiefly white and middle to upper class. Ethnic or economically disadvantaged groups commonly find NHMs unwelcoming, alienating, and largely irrelevant to their own lives; hence, they make up only a small portion of attendees. In addition, people with physical and mental limitations of mobility, size, sight, hearing, and understanding must be accommodated in NHMs. Museums need to engage these people and to develop programs and exhibits that they will find attractive because these populations will increase in the future. Exciting, stimulating, and engaging exhibits built around the collections of the NHMs can welcome all groups, if the culture and experiences of these people are understood. Sight, touch, sound, and smell are part of a more realistic exhibit and can reinforce the attractiveness of an exhibit. Real objects from the collections, displayed with imagination and creativity focused on the entire population served by the museum, can captivate and welcome people back again and encourage new visitors to attend. Technology should be adopted to complement, not replace, exhibits of actual specimens from the NHM. Perhaps the most important computer technology will be artificial intelligence (AI). This bodes well for the future in planning, organizing, and integrating all aspects of the complicated functioning of a NHM.

ABSTRACT Any child that has been to a museum, gone stomping through a creek, or gazed at the stars knows that science learning isn’t confined to a classroom. Children are eager to explore the wonders of the natural world, and parents and teachers value the importance of science education—thus, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (TCMI) has collected science objects and conducted fieldwork since it was first established. During the 1930s, museum staff members drove equipment-laden Model T cars on expeditions known as Prairie Treks. Indianapolis schoolchildren were given the chance to venture to the western United States and investigate the plants and wildlife of the region. Campers learned to identify birds and animals, pan for gold, make plaster casts of dinosaur footprints, and collect fossils and rocks to add to the museum’s collection. The natural science collection at TCMI is composed of more than 10,000 unique objects that help foster both curiosity and enthusiasm for the sciences. Science is an intensely hands-on and investigative endeavor, and this is reflected in the scope and the use of the objects in the collection. Items related to zoology, botany, and geology provide core materials that are utilized throughout the museum in exhibits, programs, and interpretation. TCMI is closing in on its 100-year history. Its unique mission, as the world’s largest children’s museum, helps it to provide public engagement with the geosciences. Today each year more than 1.2 million visitors can experience programs ranging from self-guided discovery to active participation with scientists and their current research. Thousands have joined dinosaur excavations in the rocks of the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota, prepped fossil materials in the Paleo Prep Lab, and even assisted in collection-based research.