Pretesting public garden exhibits enhances their educational value for people with diverse abilities

Formative evaluation (pretesting) can lead to better working exhibits in public gardens. While many botanical gardens and arboreta will attest to the importance of using formative evaluation, it has not been used to develop exhibits for consumers with diverse disabilities. At the Clotilde Irvine Sensory Garden of the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (Chanhassen, Minn.) we are interested in developing exhibits that meet the needs of audiences with disabilities. To that end in 2000, four comprehensive interpretive exhibits were pretested before the final exhibits were installed within the Clotilde Irvine Sensory Garden to determine the exhibits ability to teach concepts to all regardless of disability. The evaluation indicated these exhibits were physically accessible, but needed attention in specific areas to enhance their inclusiveness.