Future Curators Speak Up Finals: Teens “Take Over” Museums

On May 24, 2025, the Shanghai Natural History Museum (SNHM, a branch of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, SSTM) hosted the finals of the second Future Curators Speak Up competition. Twenty young participants spoke as a “Future Curator,” redefining museums from a child’s perspective and injecting fresh vitality into Shanghai’s efforts to build a child-friendly city.

The event also witnessed the simultaneous launch of the “My Nature Treasure Box” Home Delivery + Community Book Nook and the “Museum-Research-Community” Partnership Initiative. The SNHM has established a resource-sharing partnership with the Shanghai Women’s Federation to jointly promote the development of off-campus classrooms for family education. Meanwhile, a tripartite collaboration among the SSTM, Shanghai Rising Star Association, and Minhang Institute of Education initiated the “Museum-Research-Community” Partnership Initiative. In the future, through in-depth integration of the “Future Curators Speak Up” program and the “Little Rising Stars” project, this initiative will provide children and adolescents with more diverse and enriching STEAM education resources.

The competition has garnered extensive attention and enthusiastic response from all sectors of society since its inception. This year’s edition, themed “Guardianship and Innovation,” attracted over 500 student participants from multiple provinces and municipalities including Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Shaanxi. With four online incubation sessions and two offline experiential activities, it received 600 participants in total. A special division was created with preschool and youth groups. Through preliminary rounds of selection, 20 outstanding students from the youth group ultimately advanced to the finals at the SNHM, where they competed creatively for the title of “Future Curator.”

The finalists showcased their innovative proposals through diverse formats including speeches, model-making, and VR demonstrations, centering on themes such as “child-friendly exhibition design,” “AI-based immersive experience scenarios,” and “rare species conservation.” Following evaluation by the judging panel, ten students were honored with the title of “Future Curator” in the youth category, with the other ten receiving “Future Curator” nominations.