Nebraska State Historical Society

The Nebraska History Museum will develop staff capacity in programming and evaluation by focusing on cultivating curiosity among its staff and visitors. Guided by expert consultants, museum staff will participate in workshops intended to rekindle their own curiosity while introducing them to new research and theory about intrinsic motivation and curiosity as a life skill, and the role museums and other public institutions play in supporting individual, family, and community-wide curiosity. The consultants will also provide training in research and evaluation techniques such as working with research data and using practical tools to measure change and track effectiveness. Groups of staff and volunteers will engage in prototyping new methods for stimulating curiosity while simultaneously studying their effectiveness with public audiences. The museum will synthesize project learnings and apply them to an overall strategy for its ongoing programming and operations.