1980′s Museum Exhibit Assign.

The 1980’s was a very interesting decade. Ronald Reagan was president. The US and the USSR were enemies with thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at one another. Rubik’s cubes were everywhere. America went through a severe recession and the largest stock market crash since the Depression. A space shuttle exploded. Michael Jackson and Madonna were huge. The Red Sox came within an out of winning the World Series, and lost. (It still hurts.) The 1980’s was the decade when the Cold War ended and when personal computers changed the way the world communicates, works and plays. It was a time of enormous change. It was also the time when I was in high school, watching it all from behind a desk or in front of a computer, just like you.

Here’s the link to the 1980′s forum assignment.

Sources: http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/index.htm, http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade80.html, http://www.liketotally80s.com/index.html

Assignment: You’re a museum curator. What does a curator do? Click here to find out. You’ve been told by your boss that the museum is going to create an entire wing of their building devoted to the 1980’s.

You’ve been put in charge of the project. You have room for some exhibits, but because of the amount of time you have, you can only complete more exhibits if you have help from other people. If you want to work in a group, follow this chart:

Members	Exhibits
1	3
2	6
3	9
4	12
5	15

What will the exhibits be about? There are a lot of potential themes that you can consider in the 1980’s, such as Reagan, the Cold War, sports, music, fashion, disasters, fads, computers, the space shuttle program, books, movies, famous people, international events, television and more.

So what goes in the exhibits? Take a look at the websites listed in the sources above for ideas. You have space for 5 items in each exhibit. Think about how you can visualize your exhibit as someone walks through it. What do you see, hear, touch, taste or smell? Is your exhibit interactive, or is it materials preserved behind a glass case? Click here to get a look at some sample museum exhibits. Basically, your exhibit should meet 4 requirements:

• · Interactivity – There should be something for the museum guest to do while in your exhibit.
• · Visually stimulating – Colors and design are very important in the presentation of your exhibit.
• · Content validity – A museum guest should be able to learn information from your exhibit.
• · Coolness factor – Your exhibit should be something that is memorable and encourages people to recommend it to someone else.

So what do you do here? Well, it’s a good thing you read all of the directions above. Here are the steps:

• · Step #1: Choose your teammates or decide if you’d like to work alone.
• · Step #2: Determine what themes you are going to use for your exhibits. Write your initials on the board under the category, so we can equally distribute them.
• · Step #3: Once you’ve chosen your themes, begin your research. You’re looking for information on 5 displays for each exhibit. For example, if you chose ‘movies’, you will choose to research 5 movies from the 1980’s. For each, write a placard concerning its importance in the 1980’s. Include detailed information about who, what, when, where, why and how. Be selective in what you choose as your final 5. You want your exhibit to be awesome!
• · Step #4: Now that you have research on 5 displays for each of your 3 themes (15 total), you’re going to write out your description of your exhibit. In your own words, describe what someone would see as they walked through your exhibit. Be as descriptive as possible. When you’re finished, you’re done! Great work!

Evaluation: You will be given a maximum of 40 points for completing your research and writing a description for each of your 15 displays (5 displays each for 3 exhibits). You will be given 40 points for writing out a detailed walkthrough of each exhibit. You will be given 10 points for making a positive comment, asking an appropriate question, or providing a constructive suggestion to another student’s work/post. You will also be given 10 points for appropriately responding to another student’s comment, question or suggestion.

Thanks for your effort!