The “Detectives of the Future” exhibition at the Museum of Life was the culmination of a year-long collaboration with the University of Antioquia (UdeA) through its Faculty of Public Health and the Antioquia Scout Region community. This collaboration resulted in activities with Scouts, captured in 30 videos that can be viewed online at our Museum of the Future 2084 and are part of the exhibition at the Museum of Life in Medellín.
The Planetary Futures Project for the Care of Life invited children, youth, and adults from the Scout movement in Antioquia to imagine how we can care for life in the future. This initiative is part of the twentieth call for proposals from the University Bank of Extension Programs and Projects (BUPPE) of the University of Antioquia.
The exhibition will be open until September 2026 at the Museum of Life of the Faculty of Medicine, located in the Naviera building in downtown Medellín.
“What the project leaves behind, in terms of outputs, is an exhibition space opened by the Museum of Life in dialogue with the public and city stakeholders, in addition to the digitized history of the process in the Museum of Futures 2084,” highlights Professor Eliana Martínez Herrera. In terms of capabilities, she adds, it leaves behind “a strengthened team, gaining confidence and potential for new challenges in knowledge management, new avenues of inspiration for young researchers and talents in the city, and collaborative learning methodologies for the social co-production of knowledge.”
About this Project
The “Planetary Futures for the Care of Life” activity achieves a modern and direct appropriation of the cross-cutting themes of the Scout educational project, updating fundamental concepts such as environmental commitment and civic education.
1. Planetary Health as a Modern Environmental Commitment
“Planetary Health” is a concept that transcends the traditional view of “environmental care” and updates it to a comprehensive and systemic perspective, incorporating the following pillars of the Scout Educational Project:
• Health and Wellbeing Challenge: By introducing the concept of planetary health, the activity shows participants that human health depends on the balance of ecosystems. This comprehensive vision helps them understand that their physical, emotional, and social wellbeing is linked to caring for nature, which aligns with the Educational Project’s focus on developing citizens who promote healthy and supportive lifestyles. Furthermore, this aligns with the Scout Method, which promotes the holistic development of young people (body, mind, spirit, and relationships with others), as well as the 6th point of the Scout Law: “A Scout sees in nature the work of God and seeks its preservation and improvement.”
• The objective of the activity is to encourage awareness, participation, and action in building a sustainable and healthy planetary future. This directly translates the Scout principle of fulfilling “Duties to Others” to a global and ecological scale, promoting the co-creation of actions for possible planetary futures.
2. Foresight and Futures as Critical Thinking and Active Citizenship
The focus on “Imagining Futures” and “Foresight” is a methodological appropriation of the educational project:
• Development of Critical Thinking Skills: The dynamics of the time-travel tunnel to the year 2084 compel participants to observe, identify, and imagine future scenarios based on current trends. This stimulates critical thinking and the ability to analyze consequences.
• “Innovation for Active Citizenship” Challenge: By inviting children to create possible worlds and propose solutions to environmental and social challenges, the activity fosters the ability to innovate creatively to solve common problems. Children are taught that being an active citizen is not just about participating, but also about imagining new, creative, and responsible alternatives to build a better world. This connects with the ASC’s challenge of developing young people capable of transforming their environment with original ideas, a global vision, and community commitment.
3. Planetary Boundaries
The planetary boundaries framework helps children understand, in a simple way, that the Earth has “invisible borders” that we cannot cross without endangering life. By presenting it in a playful way, children begin to recognize that natural resources are not infinite and that there is a delicate balance that sustains the health of the planet.
• This vision connects directly with the challenge of the ASC Educational Project regarding climate change and sustainability, as it prepares new generations to be aware that their actions have a cumulative impact on the planet. By understanding that every boundary crossed (for example: deforestation, water pollution, loss of biodiversity) generates irreversible consequences, children develop a sense of shared responsibility from an early age.
In conclusion, in terms of appropriation, the activity translates a complex scientific framework into experiences that foster resilience, systems thinking, and an ethic of care, aligned with the essential competencies developed by the Scout movement, as well as the challenges it addresses. In this way, Scouts not only learn to care for the immediate environment, but also build a notion of global interdependence, aligned with the ASC’s educational commitment to forming citizens capable of confronting the climate crisis through local action with global impact.
