Using Open-Ended Questions in Exhibit Labels to Enhance Visitor Metacognition
Solutions to the most pressing environmental problems of our time rest on a well-informed citizenry capable of understanding, analyzing, and thinking critically about ethically fraught social and environmental issues. Engaging in critical thinking requires metacognition—the ability to recognize, reflect on, and understand one's own thought processes. Inquiry-based exhibits at science museums are highly appropriate, well-structured contexts for fostering metacognition as they can provide emotionally safe spaces for visitors to reflect on their own beliefs, thoughts, views, and biases.