Communicating about “The End of Fossil Fuel” in a museum setting: a mixed-methods investigation of the Climate Museum

Our understanding of who museums reach, and how effective these institutions are in communicating climate change, is not well studied. Moreover, museums focusing solely on the issue of climate change are rare. We present an analysis of the Climate Museum, the first U.S. museum focused on climate change, which combines art, learning, and opportunities for action. We collected pre-post survey data (n=143) as well as conducted qualitative interviews (n=39) with visitors over a six-month period. We found that visitors – more than 80% of whom were Alarmed about climate change – were more determined and confident in speaking about climate change, more hopeful it can be solved, and clearer about how much others are concerned, after visiting the museum. Our qualitative analysis complements these findings and identifies three key themes visitors learned about and planned to share with others: the intertwining of climate change and social inequality, the history of deception by the fossil fuel industry, and the prevailing public opinion when it comes to who is concerned about climate change. We present our findings and implications for future climate-oriented museums.