ABSTRACT Awareness-making (AM) describes a process by which visitors bring with them past experiences and knowledge, all of which help them make sense of museum exhibits. Meaning-making (MM) is when museum visitors’ memories transform their museum experience into new knowledge and meaning. This article explores how AM elicits MM in museum visitors. We conducted research at a natural history museum exhibition called Minnesota Journeys, based on a moose natural habitat display and accompanying touchscreen. The exhibition was developed in Minnesota by the Bell Museum for all ages. We report findings from a mixed-methods study incorporating surveys (n = 243) and interviews (n = 30) with adult museum visitors. The findings of this paper (1) describe how, after visiting both the moose habitat display and touchscreen, most visitors learned to identify specific moose biology and ecology characteristics, such as behavior and habitat and (2) demonstrate how in a natural history museum setting visitor awareness-making can facilitate visitor meaning-making. We discuss implications for how to utilize these findings in other museum settings and exhibits.

中文翻译：

---

探索意识如何在博物馆参观者中引发意义创造：一项混合方法研究

摘要意识制作 (AM) 描述了参观者带来过去的经验和知识的过程，所有这些都有助于他们理解博物馆展品。意义创造 (MM) 是博物馆参观者的记忆将他们的博物馆体验转化为新的知识和意义。本文探讨了 AM 如何在博物馆参观者中引起 MM。我们在名为 Minnesota Journeys 的自然历史博物馆展览中进行了研究，该展览基于驼鹿自然栖息地展示和随附的触摸屏。该展览由贝尔博物馆在明尼苏达州为所有年龄段的人开发。我们报告了一项混合方法研究的结果，该研究包括对成人博物馆参观者的调查（n = 243）和访谈（n = 30）。本文的发现 (1) 描述了在访问驼鹿栖息地显示器和触摸屏后，大多数参观者学会了识别特定的驼鹿生物学和生态特征，例如行为和栖息地，并且 (2) 展示如何在自然历史博物馆中设置参观者意识可以促进参观者的意义制定。我们讨论了如何在其他博物馆环境和展览中利用这些发现的意义。