Abstract
Keeping a museum attractive and alive requires public awareness and community engagement. Engagement programs from Museums of Ethnology, History, or Art are well documented, whereas comparable activities of Natural History Museums are rare in recent times. This paper highlights a unique cooperation project between the Natural History Museum Chemnitz and a secondary school in which a group of students assumed the role of Young Curators to create a special exhibition. They decided the exhibition's theme; set up the layout; and created displays, hands-on and established panels, and graphics. Presented in 2011, “Living in Extreme” was a journey through distinct habitats, including the rainforest, the desert, the deep sea, and the polar region. For this project, the Young Curators delivered high quality and amazing results. The feedback of the visitors and media was very positive and overall the project enhanced the public awareness on both the museum as well as the school side.
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