The Network of the Italian University Museums for the Diffusion of the Scientific Culture

The first Italian University Museums Network has been constituted in 2012 for a first project, approved an financed by the Ministry of the University and Research, coordinated by Modena and Reggio Emilia, in order to monitor the most significant museums collections, to catalog their specimens with the national standard of the Central Institute for the Catalogue and Documentation for the General Catalog of the Italian Cultural Heritage and to create 80 narrative paths dedicated to environments, landscapes, stories, history of scientific instruments. All the paths have been inserted in the bilingual web portal of the Network realized for the project (https://​www.​retemuseiunivers​itari.​unimore.​it) structured in order to contextualize, through both historical and territorial frameworks, significant collections and to strengthen the semantic value of the specimens identified and chosen by individual museums for their specific value within the four general themes and to create multiple contexts creating multiple contexts that explain the relationships between objects and the exhibits, not often easily understood upon their displaying.

The Network has gradually become aware of the great potential to develop educational programs and the diffusion of scientific culture: in 2015 started a second project, approved and financed by the same Ministry, dedicated to orient the students to the scientific method and culture. The museums realized 56 experiential educational paths through the individuation and the sharing of operative methods, the adoption and the use of common languages and tools, with specific attention to the information technologies, dedicated to three principal themes, biodiversity, color and time, and to seven subthemes: all are published in the second section of the Network web portal.