How can museums use their collections, interpretations and traditions of encouraging debate to help people re-imagine and reshape their lives in a world profoundly altered by climate change?

In October of 2013, ObjectIDEA attended Collecting the Future: Museums, Communities, and Climate Change, a workshop at the American Museum of Natural History In New York City. The workshop brought together curators, educators, historians, anthropologists and other scholars and practitioners from around the world to explore how museums can move beyond a singular focus on science education to address and integrate the physical, social, cultural and emotional dimensions of climate change. It provided a stimulating forum in which to explore how our institutions can contribute to building communities able to engage and respond to profound transformations of social and ecological systems around the globe.