FAMILY OUTING
“Outbreak” exhibit is especially vital now.
Near the entrance of The Health Museum’s “Outbreak: Epidemics in a ConnectedWorld” exhibit, volunteers staff a new informational cart distributingmaterials about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Some of themessaging is targeted specifically to kids.
During select hours, medical school students and retired physicians and scientists are stationed in the kiosk, where one family at a time can approach to collect materials and, if they choose, ask questions about the safety and efficacy of the new vaccine.
From there, visitors step into the exhibit, which explores the effects of global pandemics on the Houston area over the past 100 years.
The exhibit, conceived and installed before the pandemic, has been extended through the fall, with new community programming that ties thematerial to COVID-19.
“We didn’t really know the significance until now,” says museum president and CEO John Arcidiacono of exhibit elements such as a bat encased in glass to demonstrate how viruses pass from animals to humans.
“What an opportunity as the most diverse city … to see how diseases affect people differently and to help people live healthier lives,” Arcidiacono says.
To localize the exhibit, which
“OUTBREAK” LOOKS AT EPIDEMICS
originated at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, staff focused on the effects of polio, HIV and the bubonic plague of the 1920s on the local area.
The institution teamed with organizations such as Texas Medical Center and The University of Texas Medical Branch. Texas A&M University loaned the bat specimen and specimens of a baboon and rats.
In addition to seeing those animals, kids will enjoy interactive elements such as a large microscope to viewmosquitoes, ticks and other insects.
The lesson helps explain how the plague was transmitted via fleas on rats aboard cargo in Galveston’s ports.
Nearby, amassive black-andwhite image shows an areamovie theater’s marquee stating a poliorelated closure.
Children can use a stylus to play epidemiologist, using screenbased clues in a game to determine a source of infection.
A full field mock-up shows mannequins in PPE using a tent to research an outbreak, and a video demonstrates how droplets froma sneeze travel between a group of people.
Other elements trace factors in infections crossing the globe and define the difference between an outbreak, epidemic and pandemic.
An oral history kiosk tells local stories about the effects of HIV in Houston. Artifacts are on view from local events that raised funds to combat and research the virus and that memorialized HIV-related deaths.
“A pandemic and infection … can be a really abstract concept,” says Becky Seabrook, programs manager at the museum. “If you haven’t been impacted yet, it’s really easy for it to be something that’s out there … or isn’t really that bad.”
In her experience, Seabrook says kids will either be spooked or captivated by the sounds of a real iron lung on display.
The artifact is not plugged in, but sounds of a workingmachine are piped into the display to tell the story of the toll of polio on the local community.
Itwas polio, in fact, that birthed
The Health Museum. When civic leaders raised funds to help eradicate the disease, some of the monies were later used for public health education at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The hall at HMNS eventually grew into the building that houses The Health Museum.
“We were born out of a pandemic,” says Arcidiacono.
Themuseum — a Smithsonian affiliate — is now poised to educate a public that he believes is more connected to health concerns than ever before.
“The whole world has come together to fight (COVID-19),” he says. “Because we can communicate (at a global level), it’s raising people’s awareness … of health disparities.”
This month, the museum kicks off virtual programming that features local experts exploring the COVID-19 vaccine. In partnership with Museums for All (museums4all.org), it will also begin offering reduced $3 admission pricing to families who receive SNAP assistance.
It’s all part of an effort, Seabrook says, to “spark that wonder and curiosity … about health and the human body and making it accessible.”
OF THE PAST AND PRESENT.