Chapter 7 of Surrounded by Science introduces a new challenge to the development of museums that I haven’t thought of before: designing the museums to accommodate disabled people along with people from minority cultures. These are important factors that can’t be overlooked.

I believe it is important for institutions such as museums to be accessible for all people. When you think about the intrinsic moral rights that every human should have, you think of the right to have health care, the right to have food and shelter, and the right to have an education. Museums encompass the educational aspect. Therefore, it would be immoral to make museums exclusive to able-bodied, white, middle class citizens.

I’ve had personal experiences where cultural accommodations would’ve been helpful in a museum. I visited the Museum of Natural History with my Russian-speaking grandmother, who can speak conversational English very well, but lacks a knowledge of technical scientific terms, since all of her schooling took place in Ukraine. She’d stop by the various exhibits and observe the displays. She’d wonder why an animal looks a certain way. Frustrated, I’d tell her, “Read the description and you’d know!” I’d try to explain the caption, but with my limited Russian, it was difficult to translate technical scientific terms. Having a Russian docent or a translation of the text available would’ve helped enormously. Similarly, as we walked through the timeline walkway illustrating major cosmic events starting from the Big Bang and ending in modern Earth, my grandma was clueless about the purpose of the walkway.

I think it’s great that more efforts are being made to allow museums to be appreciated unanimously. The Vietnamese-themed and Native American-themed museums from the text work well to not only allow the content of museums to be more understandable by the cultures, but the themes also draw these people in. I felt pleased as I read about the creative exhibits designed for disabled people, such as the beads placed on a magnetic panel for making jewelry. This chapter shows how there are many factors in building a successful and universally accessible museum. You might have a very interactive, very colorful, accessible, and user-friendly museum. You might think you have all the proper elements in place. And then you realize that there are always more elements to be added. There is no end to improvement.