What happens when museums & teenagers “co-curate”?
Museums have a historic reputation for being spaces where adults tell stories to younger audiences. But what happens when you flip the script?
What happens when you blend the expertise of museum professionals with the curiosity of teenagers, and let them suggests what goes in the trail?
As part of the Podego and Kids in Museums project this year, four UK cultural institutions; the Great North Museum: Hancock, Wakefield Museum, Abbey House Museum, and Royal Museums Greenwich, decided to find out. By partnering with Podego to create gamified, browser-based app, they invited local youth to "co-curate" the experience.
But what does co-curation actually look like in practice?
The museums provided the historical and educational expertise and the final scriptwriting.
The youth panels from each museum filtered the content by choosing which objects and stories should be delivered, and decided on the gamified elements.
Podego compiled insights from all 45 teenagers across the UK and built a gamified app to disseminate the content.
1. Teens point out stories adults miss
We often think we know what will appeal to younger audiences, but the truth is, adults view history through an adult lens. When you let teenagers curate, they might surprise you with their choices (after all, you just never know what young people are going to think.)
Take Wakefield Museum, which partnered with home-educated students to build their project. Louise Bragan, a Senior Program Officer at the museum, noticed an immediate shift in perspective:
"They have chosen 10 fantastic objects that we might have not chosen as adults. So it’s been fantastic that we got teens choosing all this stuff."
By stepping back, the museum discovered an entirely new way to look at their own permanent galleries, which is through objects that genuinely sparked curiosity in young minds, rather than the ones adults perceive as important or interesting.
2. Co-creation is a three-way street
There is a massive difference between building something for young people and building something with them.
At the Great North Museum: Hancock, Kate Holden and her team worked in tandem with the Newcastle Young Inspectors. This wasn't a standard, one-time feedback panel; it was a deeply collaborative, two-way street. The young people were in the room from the very beginning, evaluating objects, debating whether the app should feel like a scavenger hunt or a guided trail, and pitching gameplay ideas.
Because the final script was built on a foundation of their real-time feedback, the youth testers felt an immense sense of ownership over the final product. They gave feedback at the start, tested prototypes along the way, and eagerly waited to play the final launch of a product they legitimately helped build.
3. Bridging the gap to underserve audience: teens aged 11-16
The 11-16 demographic is notoriously difficult for museums to capture. Traditional exhibits or interpretation labels don't always resonate, and large-scale museum tech projects can take months or years to get off the ground.
Amy, a young producer at Royal Museums Greenwich, was thrilled to use Podego’s platform to tackle this exact challenge for their permanent galleries. For her, the biggest impression came from combining real youth insight with a tech partner that could move fast:
"Sometimes the way things are in large museums, it can take a bit of a while to develop, but working with a company like Podego, they are so open, accessible, and quick to respond."
4. Removing barriers: tech as a tool for accessibility
Teenagers are digital natives, but demanding that they download a heavy, data-consuming app just to look at an exhibit creates an immediate barrier. By keeping the technology frictionless, the project ensures that the museum experience is open to everyone.
To make sure the platform truly met these standards, the app was tested by a neurodivergent youth group in Newcastle. Their real-time feedback has been instrumental in shaping a platform that is intuitive, adaptive, and highly responsive to different sensory and cognitive needs. While some of these specialized features are fully active in the launch version, others have laid a vital roadmap for future updates, ensuring that deeper accessibility remains a core priority in the development pipeline.
Amy also highlighted two technical features that made the youth-led app something to look forward to:
No app download required: It’s a browser-based app. You scan a QR code, and you are immediately in the game. As Amy brilliantly pointed out, "None of us has any storage on our phone anymore!"
Choose-Your-Own-Adventure learning: The app features gamified mechanics like unscrambling clues, alongside an "easy vs. hard" question toggle. It gives teens total control over how deeply they want to dive into a story.
Shared authority, better experiences
When museums trust young people enough to let them steer the ship, the response is overwhelmingly positive. At Wakefield Museum, the focus groups were so popular that half of the participants immediately asked when they could do it again.
Letting teenagers take over curation doesn't diminish the history or authority of a museum: it empowers them, it breathes fresh perspective into the space.
By stepping back and letting youth voices lead, museums aren't just creating apps; they are creating lifelong advocates for heritage and culture.
Get ready to experience this new wave of co-curation yourself! These gamified trails are officially launching this July across all four UK museums. Developed in close collaboration with Kids in Museums acting as the project's expert advisors, this initiative is about to change how the next generation connects with our shared history.
