From Headwaters to the Sea: The Journey of Creating an Immersive Museum Exhibit

Abstract

We describe the multi-year journey of a group of researchers co-creating a museum exhibit with the Biosphère an environmental museum of the City of Montréal. The collaboration resulted in an immersive experience where visitors can dive into an aquatic continuum and learn about function, ecology, chemistry, and the roles of the various aquatic ecosystems within a watershed and the broader landscape. Here we share the details of this journey from idea conception, the process and challenges of collaborating with different working teams, and some of the lessons learnt on teamwork, collaborations, and science communication. Challenges included composing with an eclectic group of collaborators with heterogeneous expertise and approaches, effectively communicating and interacting with diverse partners, transposing and adapting scientific concepts and ideas in order to reach a general audience, overcoming language and cultural and disciplinary barriers, among others. These challenges turned into opportunities that allowed our group to develop leadership skills and self-trust, skills to more effectively collaborate and partner in positive and creative ways, and approaches to more successfully communicate our science, and allowed us to contribute positively to society at a time when this is needed more than ever.