Those who find traditional history museums a stuffy procession of rusty spoons and dusty dioramas may want to explore an open-air alternative: "living history museums" where one can time travel on the cheap. Consider the Spanish Village in Barcelona, where travelers and scavenging scholars can efficiently inspect 49,000 square meters of historical buildings and tilt at old slides with Don Quixote. At Heritage Park in Calgary, Banff-bound hikers can stop to pose for photos (and eat 19 century ice cream) with locals dressed up as Canadians from the days of fur trading and the occasional American invasion. For those who can get visas to China, and local families on their first post-Covid-zero outing, the Millennium City Park in Kaifeng offers a hundred acres of life in the Northern Song Dynasty (a Northern Song Dynasty in which food vendors take WeChatPay). Discuss with your team: do such living history museums offer valuable lessons in culture and history, or should we treat them mainly as entertainment—more Frontierland than the Smithsonian? Should schools take field trips to them?

• “I build time machines,” says artist Aaron Delehanty. He has transported museumgoers back to places such as southern China in 5500 BC and east Africa in 1896. “The intention of a diorama is to build a replica of a specific ecosystem and to do it with such precision that they become time capsules for that environment.” Until the late 19th century, most museums displayed taxidermized animals and other natural specimens in aseptic rows of glass cabinets. Until the late 19th century, most museums displayed taxidermized animals and other natural specimens in aseptic rows of glass cabinets. This changed in 1890 when Carl Akeley, a taxidermist at the Milwaukee Field Museum, reimagined their presentation. What became known as the “Akeley method” involved creating a custom artificial environment. Akeley went on to work at the Field Museum in Chicago and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Early dioramas depended on the use of hunted animals. Many of the major contributors — most notably Akeley and friend President Theodore Roosevelt — were hunters and ardent conservationists. Museums became staffed with teams of scientists, sculptors, taxidermists, carpenters, muralists and painters who made dioramas.
• The Poble Espanyol was built for the 1929 World Fair in Barcelona. The blueprints for the village were designed by Puig i Cadafalch - eminent architect and important representative of the Modernisme. The plans were implemented by his students Francesc Folguera and Ramón Reventós. They were assisted by the art critic Miquel Utrillo and the painter Xavier Nogués, who traveled through some 1,600 (!) Villages throughout Spain to make notes and drawings to capture the true essence of Spanish architecture. After the exhibition, the Poble Espanyol should actually be demolished again - but the residents of the open-air museum have become so popular that they successfully prevented the demolition. (omg i was there)
• Heritage Park is the largest living museum in Canada and we are super lucky to have it here in Calgary. All employees and volunteers of Heritage Park are dressed in character and always have a smile on their faces eager to talk and educate.
• MILLENNIUM CITY PARK, which is located in western shore of beautiful Longting Lake in Kaifeng, is a large-scale historical cultural theme park with 600Mu total floor space in Chinese famous ancient city Kaifeng. It was founded in July 1992 in accordance with The MILLENNIUM CITY PARK done by Zhang Zeduan, a famous artist in Northern Song Dynasty and opened to the public in October 28th 1998. The PARK is a valuable life drawing for social custom, which represents social life, social custom and building structure of Kaifeng as ancient city in Northern Song Dynasty. Although it only shows part Kaifeng, it is very easy to know other streets’ situation by supposing. MILLENNIUM CITY PARK represents lively flourishing scenes of Kaifeng in Northern Song Dynasty: walking in the streets along Bianhe River.
• The breathtaking sight of the gleaming Mark Twain Riverboat and the imposing gallantry of the Columbia Sailing Ship approaching the dock beckon guests into Frontierland, a robust panorama of America’s pioneer past. As you past through the stockade entrance you are surrounded by an amalgam of sights and sounds that authentically conjures up images of America’s western expansion, from the bustling river fronts of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers of the late 1700s to the raucous and dusty desert southwest of the 1880s. The colorful drama of Frontier America in the exciting days of the covered wagon and the stagecoach…the advent of the railroad…and the romantic riverboat. Frontierland is a tribute to the faith, courage, and ingenuity of the pioneers who blazed the trails across America. (read about the rides and its correlation to the history of America)

The most famous of these museums can also be the most controversial. Consider Plimoth Patuxet in Massachusetts, where visitors can explore a colonial village and take selfies with healthy Pilgrims. The museum has recently been criticized for not paying enough attention to the indigenous peoples displaced and given smallpox by those same Pilgrims. One concern: that the tribe members staffing a Native American settlement recently added to the museum are not descendants of the actual tribe the Pilgrims first encountered. Discuss with your team: would it be better if they were—or would this be a different form of exploitation? Would it ever be okay for someone not of tribal descent to staff the Native American area of the museum? What if they weren't tribe members but had adopted tribal practices and cherished tribal customs?

• The Plimoth Plantation is located in Plymouth, MA. The Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock and the first Thanksgiving. The living history museum recreates 7 and a half months of 1627 every year. The exhibit includes actors portraying historical residents in a painstakingly researched and reconstructed environment. Even the livestock are heritage breeds. The museum has been in operation since 1947 and includes a colonial village with a fort, water-powered mill, and barns. The village is filled with modest timber-framed houses and costumed, accented role-players. Costumed interpreters act as your intermediary, explaining daily village life and answering any questions you might have. Barns at the plantation are home to historic breeds of cows, goats, sheep, chickens, and turkeys. In fact, Plimoth Plantation is part of a global effort to save these old and endangered breeds. The homesite includes traditional “wetu” huts made of wattle and daub. Staff at the Homesite wear traditional Wampanoag dress. They also demonstrate time honored crafts and activities, such as baking cornmeal cakes wrapped in grape leaves in the embers of a fire. Unlike the actors at the English Village, however, the staff here are are not role-players. Instead, these real indigenous people speak from a modern perspective about their tribe’s history and culture. And Mayflower II (read abt it im not pasting it).
• Members of the state's Wampanoag community and their supporters say Plimoth Patuxet Museums has not lived up to its promise of creating a "bi-cultural museum" that equally tells the story of the European and Indigenous peoples that lived there. The portion of the mostly outdoor museum focused on traditional Indigenous life, is inadequately small, in need of repairs and staffed by workers who aren't from local tribes. "Patuxet" was an Indigenous community near "Plimoth," as the Pilgrim colony was known before becoming modern day Plymouth. It was badly decimated by European diseases by the time the Mayflower arrived, but one of its survivors, Tisquantum, commonly known as Squanto, famously helped the English colonists survive their first winter. TLDR: The indigenous people had a problem part of the diorama and the authority weren't acknowledging their part and didn't wanna fix it for a decade lol.

To make the experience more realistic, some of these museums have diligently bred versions of animals that look more like their counterparts in the past: wilder pigs, gamier hens, dogs that are less Pomeranian and more wolf. Discuss with your team: is it okay to breed animals to serve as props in these kinds of exhibits—and does it make it better or worse if they used for food, or taken home as pets?

You may know someone on a "Paleo" diet, meaning they avoid processed foods on the theory that it is healthier to eat like our ancestors did 10,000 years ago, when their life expectancy was about 35. (To be fair, on average people died young because the super young died often—a lot of children never grew up.) Some archaeologists and historians are interested less in what we should eat now, however, and more in understanding ancient menus. What did people call dinner at different times in different places? Consider this reconstruction of a Roman thermopolium—where a young Caesar might have grabbed an isicia omentata to go, then discuss with your team: would you patronize restaurants that served food more like that in the premodern world? In North America, at least one chain, Medieval Times, has made a business of it, though its menu is less than authentic; for instance, it offers tomatoes, which didn't exist in Europe before the Spanish invaded Mexico. Speaking of tragedies, check out this menu from the last first-class meal on the Titanic; would there be a business opportunity in recreating it, or would such a business go underwater?

• Paleo diet is also called as caveman diet or stone-age diet. (LAWLLL). The diet includes meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, healthy fats, and oils. Foods to avoid include processed foods, sugar, soft drinks, artificial sweeteners, and trans fats. Foods to limit include grains, most dairy products, and legumes. (search for outcomes/ aftermath of trying the diet or celebrities who has done it idk)
• Sometimes ancient recipes get committed to paper or a tablet—though they’re often still frustratingly vague —but in most cases the task of understanding what people in the past ate, and how they prepared and consumed it is an exercise in scientific inference and creativity. And, in many cases, it all starts with crud on a pot. Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, Taché separated out the organic material in the sample, which provided some hints about potential ingredients. She didn’t find any evidence of cholesterol, which would have suggested animal protein. (read more on the article its too long)
• Thermopolium is a place in ancient Rome where its kinda like a snack bar where drinks and hot food were served. The name of the place is a Greek origin meaning “hot shop” or “hot things”. They serve legumes, vegatables, eggs, olives, onions, skewers of meat, sausages, game, fish, cheese, dried or seasonal fruit, focaccia and sweets. There are 89 Thermopolium in Pompeii, there’s a famous thermopolium of Ostia Antica called “della via Diana”. The best-selling food in thermopolias is the isicia omentata, it’s considered as the ancestor of the hamburger (do extra research where the thermapolium is located like map wise).
• The Medieval Times article is a food review article of mainly food critics and food photos. The Flagon of Grog, loaf of Garlic, stew of the tomato branch, tuber of starch, leg of fowl, the rib of boar and turnover of apple are the foods served.
• Check the menu for the Titanic Menu. Memorize the courses and the orders. Ms. Walter Douglas, a survivor and first-class passenger, recounted, "We dined the last night in the Ritz restaurant. It was the last word in luxury. The tables were gay with pink roses and white daisies, the women in their beautiful shimmering gowns of satin and silk, the men immaculate and well groomed, the stringed orchestra playing music from Puccini and Tchaikovsky. The food was superb: caviar, lobster, quail from Egypt, plover's eggs, and hothouse grapes and fresh peaches. The night was cold and clear, the sea like glass.”

The Ulster American Folk Park isn't American at all—it's in Ireland. Visitors can experience the lives of Irish people who moved to the United States, from boarding crowded ships to sleeping in makeshift log cabins. Discuss with your team: is it all right for a country to reconstruct and market another country's history? If someone next door in Scotland were to build a similar museum about the lives of early British settlers in India or South Africa, would that be more problematic? Are there some periods of history that should never be simulated in the real world, even if the purpose is to demonstrate to visitors that they were terrible?

There are fewer examples of "living future" museums—with good reason. But they do exist, often at World Expos or in amusement parks. Consider the following examples of such museums, then discuss with your team: do they tell us more about the future or about the past? If you were designing such a museum today, what would it look like?

Tomorrowland | Museum of the Future | "World of Tomorrow" (1939)

• **Tomorrowland** - Tomorrowland is one of the five original "lands" of Disneyland, themed to the future and outer space. It opened along with the park on July 17, 1955, and had its largest overhaul in 1967, and was modified again in 1998. It is home to major attractions such as Space Mountain and Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. In early designs of Disneyland, Tomorrowland was referred to as the "World of Tomorrow", with early plans including moving sidewalks and suspended monorail systems. (read more here)
• **Museum of the Future** - Located in UAE, Dubai. The Museum combines elements of exhibition, immersive theatre and themed attraction. Each floor is like a film set from a future that you can inhabit, explore and interact with. The building’s form is futuristic: it opens a new path away from the highrise towers that dominate skylines everywhere. Its form is symbolic: The circular building represents humanity; the green mound it sits atop represents the earth; the void represents the unknown future. The Museum of the Future is an initiative of the Dubai Future Foundation.
• "World of Tomorrow" (1939) - The New York World’s Fair opened on April 30, 1939, in Flushing Meadow, Queens. Promoted as the “World of Tomorrow,” it hosted exhibits by 60 countries, the League of Nations, 33 states, several federal agencies and the City of New York. In keeping with the futuristic theme, new consumer and industrial products such as television, air-conditioning, nylon stockings and color film were introduced to the public at the fair. It was still one of the most significant events in twentieth-century New York City history. In addition to the new consumer products, the 1939 New York World’s Fair is noted for its distinctive visual appearance in both the architectural style of many of the pavilions and the look and typography of promotional materials. (click here to watch a video of it)
• Crystal Palace | American National Exhibition (Moscow, 1959)
  • [Crystal Palace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace#:~:text=The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and,examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution.) - The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000 square feet (92,000 m2) exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m). (research the purpose for the building)
  • American National Exhibition (Moscow, 1959) - The American National Exhibition (July 25 to Sept. 4, 1959) was an exhibition of American art, fashion, cars, capitalism, model homes and futuristic kitchens that attracted 3 million visitors to its Sokolniki Park, Moscow venue during its six-week run. The Cold War event is historic for the Nixon-Khrushchev "kitchen debate" held first at the model kitchen table, outfitted by General Electric, and then continued in the color television studio where it was broadcast to both countries, with each leader arguing the merits of his system, and a conversation that "escalated from washing machines to nuclear warfare.” (read about the kitchen debate it might be needed, and continue researching about the stuff they showed in the American Exhibition)