The following resources helped to shape our thinking around the Unexpected Encounters Framework.

United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, governments around the world, including the UK, agreed to a transformational programme of 17 Sustainable Development Goals to create the ‘future we want’ by 2030 through, for example, promoting good health and wellbeing for all, reducing inequalities, strengthening efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s natural and cultural heritage, and to provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces. Museums can contribute to these actions through supporting social justice issues, including the rights of older people and their access to nature and natural heritage, and the valuing of a safe, vibrant and healthy natural environment, which is ultimately good for everyone’s wellbeing.

The Five Ways to Wellbeing

Developed by the new economics foundation, the Five Ways to Wellbeing are a set of evidence-based actions that set out a framework to help improve and promote personal wellbeing. They were founded on the notion that mental health is intrinsic to wellbeing, namely a positive state of mind and body, feeling that you can cope, feeling safe, and feeling connected to people, your community and to the wider world. There are five actions – connect, take notice, give, keep learning and be active. Each of these actions contributes to wellbeing in a positive way, making people feel good and boosting their ‘mental capital’ (e.g. resilience, self-esteem, cognitive capacity and emotional intelligence). The Wheel of Wellbeing extends the concept to include ‘Planet: Care,’ which encourages people to think about their impact on the world around them. This is a very positive addition for thinking about how we can connect natural heritage collections, nature connectedness and wellbeing.

Maslow Hierarchy of Human Need

Our previous publication, Mind, Body, Spirit, suggested that by starting with the health and wellbeing needs of their communities, by looking outside the institution, museums can be more effective at developing activities to meet those needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Need can help us to think about the different needs that people have and how some are more important than others. How do older people perceive their own needs? Are these needs being met? How can museums play a role in meeting those needs?

Mindfulness

Living in the moment was very important to the participants of Encountering the Unexpected. The stage they were at in life had given them a greater awareness of the need to be ‘in the moment’ and make the most of the time they have. Being in the moment was described in various ways by participants but generally it constituted the ability to focus on the now, be calm, relaxed and be able to enjoy yourself in the moment without worrying about other things. This very focused sense of time, place and self is very close to mindfulness. Mindfulness has its roots in Buddhism and can be thought of as ‘moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a specific way, that is, in the present moment, and as non-reactively, as non-judgmentally, and as openheartedly as possible’ (Kabat-Zinn, J. (2015). Mindfulness. Mindfulness, 6(6), 1481-1483). Cultivating mindfulness is helpful to wellbeing and creativity as it helps to encourage a positive state of being, one of acceptance, balance and understanding.

 Promoting a connection with nature

Encouraging people to connect with the natural world is increasingly critical in the light of declining biodiversity, environment degradation and challenges to human health and wellbeing. Research suggests that when people are engaged with the natural world, they are more likely to appreciate its value and want to do something to help.

Environmental action groups and charities have found that people respond better to positive messages that reconnect us to the natural world and make the link with health and wellbeing, rather than negative messages about loss, threat and destruction (e.g. Common Cause for Nature). Useful theories that highlight our connection with nature include Wilson and Kellert’s Biophilia hypothesis – which sees human development and evolution as a product of our interaction with, experience of, and response to, the natural world – and Nature connectedness, a concept that helps us to think about our own individual relationship with the natural world. Finding Nature, a nature connections research blog written by Dr Miles Richardson of the University of Derby looks at ways of improving our connection to nature.

Museums are starting to think about the role that natural heritage collections can play in connecting us to the natural world. The Living Worlds gallery at Manchester Museum is developed around the theme of exploring the natural world and people’s relationships with it, and uses Kellert’s nine basic attitudes to nature developed from the Biophilia hypothesis as a way of connecting visitors with the themes in the displays. Research by Lumber, Richardson and Sheffield found that emphasising contact, emotion, meaning, compassion and beauty in relation to the natural world were much more effective ways of engaging people with nature than the more traditional knowledge and identification activities.

Inspiring Learning for All and the Generic Learning Outcomes

The Generic Learning Outcomes are a conceptual framework for understanding the learning that takes place in museums, and for capturing the outcomes and impact of that learning. Part of Inspiring Learning for All – which puts learning at the heart of museums, libraries and archives – learning is defined as lifelong, open-ended and inclusive. Learners are seen as active meaning makers, rather than passive recipients of information, and learning is driven by the interests, experiences and background of the learner. ILFA’s approach can be summarised in the following definition, adapted from the Campaign for Learning:

Learning is a process of active engagement with experience. It is what people do when they want to make sense of the world. It may involve increase in or deepening of skills, knowledge, understanding, values, feelings, attitudes and the capacity to reflect. Effective learning leads to change, development and the desire to learn more.

Key characteristics of learning in museums and galleries include:

  • It is cognitive (e.g. learning new facts, information) and affective (e.g. emotions, values).
  • It is part of a process of change, developing over time.
  • It is not always about learning something new but building on, or reinforcing, what is already known.
  • Learning can be individual and social, taking place through interaction and shared experiences with others.
  • Learning can be both deep and shallow, tightly focused and open and diffuse.
  • Learning in museums is idiosyncratic and unpredictable -there is no formal curriculum to be followed.

From research into learning experiences in museums, archives and libraries – and grounded in social constructivist learning theory – five Generic Learning Outcomes (GLOs) were identified:

  • Knowledge and understanding
  • Attitudes and values
  • Enjoyment, Inspiration, Creativity
  • Skills
  • Action, behaviour, progression

GLO star (PDF)

Internationally, the GLOs provide a useful and credible language to describe the learning experiences of users of museums and galleries. Evidencing the Impact of the Generic Learning Outcomes by Jo Graham explores the impact that the GLOs have had on the museum sector and beyond.