Principal Investigator Ari W Epstein
Co-investigator Sallie Chisholm
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/museumboat
The MIT Caribbean Museum Boat team is committed to joining smaller, geographically remote communities to form a larger community capable of collectively supporting the high costs of more powerful education technology. The team's goal s to create a full-featured science museum on board an ocean barge that will travel between these communities. The science museum aims to inspire a passion for science among families and youth of the general public through hands-on, interactive exhibits.
The Museum Boat will operate as an independent non-profit organization support by:
National governmentPrivate industry sponsorshipsInternational organizationsEstablished museumsUniversitiesEducational research institutions
Should the basic model of the Museum Boat prove successful, communities around the world could easily apply this model with the appropriate cultural and regional modifications to develop their own museum boats.
The current plan is to send a team to work more closely with interested individuals and organizations in partner nations. They will work to solidify the international organization framework necessary to begin concerted technical work on the financial, legal, political an logistical aspects of this project.
Two MIT students spent the summer of 2006 working and living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Generously supported by Terrascope, MIT's Public Service Center, the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, and the MIT UROP office. The students created close ties with Dominican universities and institutions to aid in the development of the MIT Caribbean Museum Boat project. Their primary efforts included the documentation of a societal *need* for the Museum Boat, research concerning boat-types and port logistics, evaluation of exisiting modes of science and technology education in the nation, and the development of a Dominican student-run team. The cultural benefits of working abroad, along with the challenges of adapting new communication skills and lifestyles inspired the renewed ideal for the goals of this project.