Investigation of a Museum Education Workshop of Széchenyi Zsigmond Hungarian Hunting Museum of Carpathian Basin, with a Focus on Education for Environmental Awareness

Abstract

More and more museums are offering environmental education programmes, and museum education activities are providing more and more learning and experiences for people of all ages. This study aims to find common ground between promoting sustainability and museum education activities. We investigate the role of museums in the development of environmentally aware attitudes in the framework of a doctoral research. One of our research sites is the Széchenyi Zsigmond Hungarian Hunting Museum of the Carpathian Basin. As part of the research, primary school students participated in museum education workshops. The aim of the surveys conducted at the Hunting Museum of Hatvan was to develop the natural science skills of the third to sixth grade pupils participating in the programmes by providing them with the broadest possible scientific basis and to increase their knowledge of our living and non-living natural resources. We observed the effects of environmental education about the museum workshops, documented changes in students' knowledge and tested their short- and long-term memory (179-172-163 students participated). In the second survey, the students achieved better results in terms of changes in knowledge than in the first questionnaire (our hypothesis was confirmed). The results of the third survey exceeded the results of the second survey in most cases (except one question) (the hypothesis was partially confirmed or overturned).