Organization of work with children's audience in the Liaoning Paleontological Museum in China

This article is the first knowledge in the museum study to examine the work with the children's audience carried out by the staff of the Liaoning Paleontological Museum in China. An appeal to the history of the Museum, created in 2011, allows the authors to say that the Museum actively cooperates with schools throughout the decade of its activities. They point to a cooperation agreement the Museum has signed with 96 primary and secondary schools in China. According to this agreement, museum staff bring fossils to schools and show them to schoolchildren. The demonstration of fossils receives special attention in remote rural schools, as teachers and students cannot visit the museums regularly. Employees of the Liaoning Museum use a special large car, which loads fossils, models, billboards and equipment for film screenings and drives them to remote areas. The Liaoning Museum uses a book by Chinese professor Wang Dinghua “American Basic Education: Observation and Research”, published in 2015. Based on this book, the museum specialists developed a plan of three colors - the RGB plan (Red. Green. Blue). The implementation of this plan allows employees to form three age groups of the children's audience. The Red Group includes preschoolers and elementary school students aged 3-7 years. The Green Group unites schoolchildren aged 8-11. In addition, the Blue Group includes high school students aged 12-17 years. Interesting and informative museum programs are designed for each of these groups. The Red Group do games, participation in which allows children to be acquainted with the museum. Children from the Green Group attend exhibitions, participate in conversations with museum' guides and enthusiastically engage in manual labor. The most complex and rich program is offered in the Blue Group. Members of this group conduct real scientific research, visit scientific laboratories and perform some experiments using an electron microscope. The Blue Group practices “Telling stories about 100 scientists at home and abroad”. Thus, high school students adopt the experience of paleontological research in China and throughout the world. The most popular activity of high school students is field scientific excursions. Often these excursions are one- or two-day trips over short distances. At the same time, during the winter or summer holidays, members of the Blue Group can go on expeditions for a term of 7 to 14 days. It is important to emphasize that such long expeditions are designed for the participation of children and their parents. Moreover, this undoubtedly brings the family closer. Specialists of the Liaoning Museum lead the Blue Group during a long trip. They acquaint schoolchildren with geological profiles; give tasks to paint paleontological fossils. Expedition leaders encourage the scientific creativity of adolescents, approve of their independent attempts to extract scientific information from fossils. Therefore, the authors of this article can say that working with children and adolescents in the Liaoning Museum has great prospects.

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