Fare ricerca educativa in museo. I visitatori bambini come interlocutori nella progettazione museale. Educative research in museums. Kid-visitors contribute to design the museum

Science museum is an institution open to the public to promote culture and heritage, and to develop citizen’s science skills. Therefore, science museum offers activities for different categories of publics, included children, who represent an high percentage of the visitors. It contributes to develop science literacy in children, by using different approaches to meet their styles of learning and to answer their educational needs and expectations. The paper presents the research we carried out in the Natural History and Archaeology Museum of Montebelluna TV, Italy. More specifically, we want to present how we assessed background information about children perceptions, expectations and interests regarding science museum. This front-end evaluation activity was functional for the Institution to best answer children’s educational needs in order to design a new museum area, and it also helped the Museum to plan new science communication strategies that might be implemented in the new area.