The Tulare County Museum welcomes many neurodivergent visitors – people on the autism spectrum, dyslexia, ADHD, and other related neurodiverse ways of navigating the world. The museum seeks to engage their visitors in an exciting and accessible way by providing easy to use programming through visitors’ phones.
The Tulare County Museum aims to expand their programming to include more inclusive and innovative learning methods. As a Certified Autism Center, the museum is committed to providing learning experiences that are not overwhelming for guests. Agents of Discovery achieves this goal by allowing the visitor to explore the museum and learn more about the exhibits without participating in a tour group. Players have the ability to move through the space at their own pace, and the structure of the tool gives them autonomy over their learning.
“When you’re in a space and moving your body, it can help process information in a way that can better solidify key takeaways rather than just sitting and listening to information,” says Amy King, Tulare County Museum Curator. Agents of Discovery has become a great way to expand the information visitors can learn without the use of display space, which is limited.
The museum is free for visitors and is working to maintain a recurring visitor base. To address this, the museum utilizes premade Themed Missions provided by Agents of Discovery to swap out educational content and keep people coming back: “Just like we change exhibits that get people to return, we do that with Agents.”
“It’s nice that we can create the content we want museum visitors to be learning with Agents of Discovery.”
“The game is helpful because it highlights the pieces we have and make them the jumping off point for players to learn more.”
Amy King
Curator
Tulare County Museum