Water: The American Experience
Ashley E. Smith
Harvard University
Professor Wilson, MUSE E102
6 December 2022
Water: The American Experience
Staving Off Water Catastrophe in America
Water is the driving life force behind everything on Earth. Given the importance to our collective survival, it is shocking how little knowledge average Americans possess in regard to this vital element. This is largely due to the phenomenon of “out of sight, out of mind” with the way that water works in America: the lack of public education toward the water system and its subsequent infrastructure and technologies (Brown et. al). “Turn on the tap and out comes a limitless supply of high-quality water for less money than we pay for cell phone service. We think about water as though it were like air, infinite and inexhaustible, when, in fact, water is very finite and very exhaustible” (Glennon). Unfortunately, because our water has been exhausted, Americans no longer have the luxury of living in an ignorant bliss (“As the Climate Dries the American West Faces Power and Water Shortages, Experts Warn”). America is in the midst of a water crisis that will progress to a catastrophe if not checked and remedied with meaningful action (Glennon).
To remedy this crisis, and in hopeful collaboration with the Water Museums Global Network, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (further forward referenced as UNESCO-IHP), and the American Water Works Association, along with cooperating museums and industry professionals, curator Ashley E. Smith, presents a proposal to create a traveling educational water exhibition: Water, The American Experience (hereafter referred to as Water). Museums are poised to become environmental education leaders in their communities, as they provide perfect platforms for collaborating with traveling exhibitions to share the critical knowledge about water that Americans lack. By making this information broadly accessible, in an aesthetically pleasing and multifaceted approach that will engage an audience, museums will spur visitors to take meaningful action toward staving off an American water catastrophe.
Successful Cohabitation of Environmental Education and Museums
Various scholars have shown that endeavors toward providing the public with exhibit-based environmental education regarding climate change or resource crisis, has rarely been approached in museums. Despite this, those same scholars have unanimously argued that museums are the ideal setting for environmental education. Instead, existing water exhibits tend to focus on the beauty and wonder of the creatures and environments related to water in a cabinet of curiosities or diorama model, or, the adventure and adrenaline of the maritime themes of sport, trade, and transportation. Rarely have museums focused on water in relation to sustainability and processing technologies, human relationships toward water (need, cause, and effect), and the subsequent crisis we now find ourselves in.
In 2017, The Water Museums Global Network was founded (“Mission | Global Network of Water Museums”), in recognition of the aversion or inability of the public to see the above-mentioned issues surrounding water and the ineffectiveness of the small platforms that a limited number of existing water museums were shouting from. In, 2018, in partnership with UNESCO-IHP, The Water Museums Global Network created a larger platform, along with a worldwide call to action for new water museum creation and a banding together of those museums in an effort to remind people, worldwide, how important and precious water truly is (“Mission | Global Network of Water Museums”). UNESCO-IHP understands that museums are pivotal in the effort to provide environmental education to the public, not only because of their audience reach quantitatively, but because of the qualitative diversity of multi-media resources at their disposal in which to present a variety of content (“Mission| Global Network of Water Museums”). By partnering with The Water Museums Global Network, UNESCO-IHP hopes that raising awareness through museums will rally action toward the achievement of their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically supporting Sustainable Development Goal Number 6, “the promotion of sustainable water management and water security” (“Mission | Global Network of Water Museums”). Through the partnership with UNESCO-IHP, The Water Museums Global Network, in turn, hopes to achieve their mission of “paving the way for a paradigm shift and creating a new culture around water, revitalizing what consumer culture has forgotten or rendered invisible” (“Mission | Global Network of Water Museums”).
Other scholars support the notion that museums are ideal multi-media platforms from which to launch environmental education campaigns, including a water themed education campaign. Robert Janes, “Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Museum Management and Curatorship, archaeologist, and forty-two-year museum professional” (“Featured Author Robert R. Janes”), in 2008, argued that museums, despite a traditional lack of funding and a de-emphasis on the importance of education within them, have the responsibility to “offer intellectual and civic resources in times of profound social and environmental change.” His focus was on overconsumption of resources in a deteriorating resource pool, which includes water and threats to it.
Bell and Clover, of the University of Victoria, built on his ideas in 2017 - the same year The Global Network of Water Museums was founded - in regard to environmental education, by stating that “adult educators must work to enhance people’s collective potential to learn.” Museums, as platforms for environmental education, help to offer a mass public the “opportunity to reflect collectively upon the root causes of environmental problems” in ways that are less stressful or overwhelming (Bell and Clover). For example, museums offer education through indirect mediums like “art, storytelling, crafts, music, exploration of place, and local community member interaction” (Bell and Clover), using experiences and objects to tell stories and create safe spaces to learn and think through challenging problems. This approach of learning softens the blow that complex scientific information can often bombard people with, which can turn off interest in a topic and create a consequent loss of hope toward the resolution of multi-faceted scientific and technologic problems. Through engaging interactions and time for thought, the envisioned consequential goals for environmental education museum exhibits include visitor hope, informed inspiration, and resultant action towards collaborative solutions. (Bell and Clover).
Wang and Chiou, of the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, voice a similar goal, claiming that environmental education through museums should create new culture and values in visitors. They stress that the goal of the exhibits should be to “establish values dedicated to social welfare and concern for human heritage, impressing learners, creating knowledge, and facilitating understanding through science that will equip us with the ability to find solutions to today’s environmental challenges and to achieve sustainable development” (Want and Chiou).
Due to the gravity and complexity of the problems involved, and the need for sufficient funding, effective environmental education exhibits may seem to be achievable only by larger establishments. Korfmacher and Garrison have shown, however, with the results of their Healthy Home Museum that was in operation from 2006 to 2009, that big impact can be achieved by modest institutions. Not only did visits to their small house museum exhibit prove that raising awareness to environmental problems could create a national change in behavior, they also proved that the exhibit could travel, meeting interested parties in board rooms, schools, recreation centers, and hospitals (Korfmacher and Garrison). While the physical museum was only in operation by the original parties for three years, the information itself and the knowledge of how to present the information successfully is now available to all through the successful use of digital technology. Thus, the knowledge shared and its impact are still in circulation all across the globe, from the efforts of a collaborative group and a tiny house.
Environmental education is successful and necessary content for museums to implement and exhibit as an offering to their communities. Providing the public with an exhibit on water related education would help raise awareness toward the issues involved in the crisis America is facing, and would allow room for growing interest and subsequent collaborative solutions to be created and built upon, not only by industry experts, but by informed community members.
Museums can impact society through diverse educational experiences and goal setting, thus enabling behavioral changes and a resultant cultural change in American’s relationships, and perceived value, toward water. This places museums and museum staff in crucial roles within communities. The inclusion of environmentally-based content about water stands to revitalize public and professional interest in museums when viewed from the lens of quid pro quo- give museum staff your time and attention, and they will provide an experience that will impact and change your life- a partnership that benefits the environment as its own entity and consequently all life that depends on it.
The Exhibition Experience Start-Up
The 2030 UNESCO-IHP goal, in collaboration with The Global Network of Water Museums, along with inspiration from Korfmacher and Garrison’s success, creates a hopeful eight-year window of opportunity for potential water exhibit museum curators and collaborators to rise to the occasion of creating diverse water education exhibits. This window of opportunity depends upon the initial sponsorship of American museums as hosts, specifically science and natural history museums, or venues related to water content, as they are obviously the most relevant to the exhibit subject matter. However, the creation of a stand-alone museum is not out of the question. Adding twenty years of additional opportunity for refinement and exhibit sponsorship, the American Water Works Association, the leader and professional collaborator in American water treatment and education, is working toward similar goals with their Water 2050 campaign, focused on “critical drivers that will influence progress toward a sustainable and resilient water future,” (“AWWA launches Water 2050 initiative to prepare for sustainable water future”).
Water’s creator, Ashley E. Smith, plans to seek sponsorship and funding advice from these groups for her traveling exhibit. She will collaborate with them heavily to seek out applicable subject matter experts from across the country to aid in building priority curriculum and storylines toward critical water problems. These professionals will aid in providing relevant objects and technologies for display that work toward supporting the curriculum. This will provide the baseline of knowledge deemed necessary for all Americans to understand the problems at hand. The collective entity produced will form the foundation for Water.
Once the foundation is established, Ms. Smith will divide the country into categories, depending on physical location or similarity of water priorities. The bulk of an exhibit’s content will then be tailored to the specific needs of that category. She will bring in set designers, production assistants, and artists to create this focused content, designed with aesthetically pleasing and multifaceted approaches toward a full and memorable visitor learning experience. All guests will get the same foundational information, but will be able to learn in depth content tailored toward specific situations and concerns, allowing them make informed decisions and take meaningful actions toward water solutions for their specific regions.
With much flexibility in the startup phase, Water will physically travel the country in the style of a touring Broadway show or music concert, with four-month time slots reserved for a host museum in each region. This model is similar to current touring exhibits, such as Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience and Bodies: The Exhibition. However, content will also be made available digitally (in the style of Korfmacher and Garrison), and smaller experiences and presentations can be created that are tailored specifically toward relevant and interested corporations and larger entities, or adapted more toward academia, both large and small in scale.
Specific exhibit curriculum, content, and other details will be discussed in further proposals, once interest has been established by the aforementioned organizations regarding this proposal. However, specific collaboration with the American Water Works Association was validated in a statement by Richard Hebda, former professor of biology and earth sciences and former curator of Earth history at the Royal BC Museum (“Staff”), which provides a glimmer of inspiration toward a section of envisioned content. Hebda wrote:
Imagine a museum partnering with a regional water utility to explore the characteristics of climate and water supply, and examine future demand. Add the need for sustaining the productivity and biodiversity of aquatic systems and you have a highly integrated program which bridges human and natural history, as well as the physical and social sciences, and is, in addition, highly relevant.
In creating Water, it is of the utmost importance to keep in mind that the content be focused toward each visitor’s overall experience. What the visitor internally takes away from the exhibit, spurring them to take action and make behavioral changes, or what the visitor remembers to share with others, invoking the urge for others to learn more, is the true measure of Water’s success. It will be the responsibility of all professionals involved to ensure that this mission and vision succeeds.
Remaking Our World
In his book, Designing Museum Experiences, author Mark Walhimer references a statement made by educator and activist, Mary McLeod Bethune, which encapsulates the position American museum professionals are slowly shifting to adopt. She issued a challenge for museum professionals, bluntly, but simply, stating, “We must remake the world. The task is nothing less than that,” (Walhimer).
In the midst of the American water crisis and of American museums evolving and reinventing themselves (Anderson) in order to help remake the world, museums must shift as a collective whole from exclusive, subject-focused museums, toward inclusive, visitor-centered museums that are full of relevant content. Their missions must be focused on visitor experience, visitor engagement, and consequent wisdom sharing, from the lens of a museum’s specific content, mission, and vision. Toward that end, exhibits such as Water can help environmental education evolve from a validated idea voiced by numerous scholars, especially over the last twenty years, into exercised common practice for museum content. Re-iterating the earlier message from Wang and Chiou, museum content should strive to “establish values dedicated to social welfare and concern for human heritage, create knowledge, and facilitate understanding through science that will equip us with the ability to find solutions to today’s environmental challenges and to achieve sustainable development.”
Environmental education is achievable by the opening of museum doors as hosts for collaboration and sponsorship with traveling exhibits focused entirely on specific environmental content, and its relevancy toward humanity, created by a cohort of diverse subject matter experts and tailored toward specific museums and their locations within America. Lanesha DeBardelaben, president and CEO of the Northwest African American Museum, referenced in Designing Museum Experiences, signaled the salience of this shift when she said,
“Museums will help remake our world by engaging with the agents of change- our visitors- in new ways, while responding to current challenges, facilitating urgent conversations, and meeting our community where they are, providing impactful experiences and emotional connections that lead to life-changing personal insights,” (Walhimer).
As there are currently no American museums participating in UNESCO-IHP, the Water Museums Global Network, nor the American Water Works Association, given that these organizations are all are seeking to meet their respective 2030 and 2050 goals, and due to the lack of knowledge the average American holds regarding the evolution and trajectory of current water crisis, taking into account the dire stakes America will face, which they are starting to face, (Brown, et al.), if the crisis is not urgently met and remedied, it is of the utmost importance to support and nurture the creation of the exhibit, Water. Water policy advisor Robert Glennon, to whose words this essay opened, has charged:
“In the end I am optimistic because this is a crisis, not a catastrophe. We have options to avoid a catastrophe, but we need both the understanding that there is a crisis out there and the will and the moral courage to act upon it.”
Let Glennon’s charge be the final pull and deciding factor toward support and sponsorship for Water: The American Experience.
Works Cited
Anderson, Gail. Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift, vol. 2, AltaMira Press, 2012. Print.
“As The Climate Dries the American West Faces Power and Water Shortages, Experts Warn.” UNEP, 2 Aug. 2022. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/climate-dries-american-west-faces-power-and-water-shortages-experts-warn
“AWWA Launches Water 2050 Initiative to Prepare for Sustainable Water Future.” American Water Works Association, Mar. 2022. https://www.awwa.org/AWWA-Articles/awwa-launches-water-2050-initiative-to-prepare-for-sustainable-water-future
Bell, Lorraine, and Clover, Darlene E. “Critical Culture: Environmental Adult Education in Public Museums.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, vol. 2017, no. 157, Wiley, Mar. 2017, pp. 17-29. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.20218
Brown, Thomas C., et al. “Adaptation to Future Water Shortages in the United States Caused by Population Growth and Climate Change.” Earth’s Future, vol. 7, no. 3, American Geophysical Union (AGU), Mar. 2019, pp. 219–34. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ef001091.
“Featured Author Robert R. Janes”. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. https://www.routlege.com/authors/i7863-rober-r-janes#
Glennon, Robert. “America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It.” Office of Research and Economic Development-Publications, vol. 9, 2009. https://www.digitalcommons.unl.edu/researchecondev/9.
Janes, Robert. “Museums in a troubled world: Making the case for socially responsible museums. MUSE, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 20-25.
Korfmacher, Katrina S., and Garrison, Valerie. “Partnering to Reduce Environmental Hazards Through a Community-Based ‘Healthy Home Museum’: Education for Action.” Environmental Justice, vol. 7, no. 6, Mary Ann Liebert Inc, Dec. 2014, pp. 158-65. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2014.0030
“Mission | Global Network of Water Museums.” Water Museums Global Network, UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Program. https://www.water.museums.net/about/mission
“Staff.” Royal BC Museum. https://staff.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/author/rbcm_rhebda
Walhimer, Mark. Designing Museum Experiences. Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc, 2022. Print.
Wang, Yun-Ciao, and Chiou, Shang-Chia. “An Analysis of the Sustainable Development of Environmental Education Provided by Museums.” Sustainability, vol. 10, no. 11, MDPI AG, Nov. 2018, p. 4054. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10114054
*Please note that the above was assigned with specific requirements and graded by a ruberic.
