As part of MSU’s Strategic Development Programme, the Youth Museum initiative is currently under development as a mobile-network project. The project consists of a system of interacting nodes, comprising a central site on the MSU campus and a network of regional subdivisions. The proposal suggests the use of mobile field museum exhibitions as an effective mechanism of interaction. In recent years, the aforementioned system was experimentally tested within the “Flotilla of Floating Universities” scientific and educational expedition. This project comprises a set of interrelated research, educational, training, artistic, and other projects. The direct and active involvement of students and schoolchildren led to the development of creative methods for the traveling exhibitions «Ancient Lukomorye» and «Living Matter in Geospheres», as well as to the methods of joint empirical and information gathering for the development of central and regional «Youth Museum» clusters. Materials were collected to create pilot versions of exhibitions, educational collections and the launch of interactive platforms at Tambov State Technical University: «Cretaceous Beach» («Palaeoecological Sandbox»), «Page of the Stone Chronicle» («Dissecting Table of a Beginner Palaeoecologist»), and others. These exhibitions are designed to ensure that they can be used effectively in educational and outreach activities on a wide range of topics. Students and schoolchildren will have the opportunity to conduct small-scale individual and collaborative research projects of varying levels of complexity using the platform format.

The article is devoted to the history of V.I. Zubov’s Museum of Geology and Minero­logy, the prerequisites for its foundation, and the main stages of its creation, development, and collection formation. The article analyzes the museum’s exhibition policy and research activities, trends in museum science, the structure of the collections reflecting regional geological features, current issues and prospects for updating exhibition spaces, digitalization of the collections, and integration of museum experience into educational programs.

Vinogradsky’s columns are known as a model of a microbial community for experiments in laboratory conditions. The article proposes a system of integrated use of Vinogradsky’s columns in the space of the Earth Science Museum as: a) a visual dynamic “living exhibit”, b) an interactive platform of the Youth Museum, and a mobile cluster for exhibitions and the Science Festival, c) a natural educational and methodological tool, and d) a laboratory naturalistic experimental setup. Making a series of Vinogradsky’s columns from different locations of the initial pedo-soil matrix of various compositions allows for a successful combination of scientific, experimental, educational, and demonstration-interactive tasks in the space of a natural science university museum. In the Earth Science Museum at Moscow State University (Hall 21 – East European Plain), a series of Vinogradsky’s columns has been developed, based initially on the materials of bottom sediments samples of pond reservoirs, selected by a team of novice nature explorers (students of Moscow State University and schoolchildren) as part of the project “Youth Museum” of Moscow State University. Two-year monitoring has allowed to obtain new data on the development of microbial communities and to arrange an original cluster in the hall and to present a series of columns at the All-Russian Science Festival.

The international situation affects a wide variety of aspects of our life, including museum exhibitions. The closer the ties between countries, the more relevant exhibits can be seen in the display cases. Of the BRICS member countries, China is best represented at the Earth Science Museum of Moscow State University. There are numerous and diverse samples of rocks and minerals, fossils, soil monoliths and herbaria. Joint geological work is also reflected in the collections of rocks and ores from Iran and India. Until now, the museum has been maintaining only private relations with the rest of the BRICS member countries, thanks to which it has collections of butterflies, herbaria and individual samples of rocks and minerals. Nevertheless, the museum features the most distinctive exhibits from most of these countries.

Expedition work is an important aspect of the activities of any natural science university museum, starting directly from its formation as a scientific, educational and enlightening center. As the museum structure develops, the role of such expeditions is transformed, acquiring the character of an evolutionarily necessary structural and functional mechanism. In the 75-year history of the Earth Science Museum of MSU, three main stages of expeditionary activity are distinguished. The first one is associated with the formation of the Museum in the 1950–60s and reflects, as the main task, the formation of an array of naturalia (natural objects), as well as photographic materials and works of art, which formed the basis of the exposition and collection base. The second stage is marked by targeted expeditions for specific local exhibition and research tasks, involving field collection of natural facts. At the third stage in the 21st century, the functional spectrum of the Museum’s expeditionary activities is expanding: field work, in addition to the traditional mechanism of new acquisitions, becomes an arena for positioning the Museum for the general public outside its classical space, an interactive cluster of education and popularization of science, involving various social groups in the area of the expedition’s work in museum co-creation. The Museum’s expeditions are widely reflected in popular science films and books, at “Science Festivals”, in the media space and blogosphere. These innovations have been testing in recent years in the mode of the scientific and educational expedition “Floating Universities Flotilla” in the Volga region, which has become an important resource for the implementation of the concept of a mobile network museum, as well as the formation of a youth museum as a promising interdisciplinary project of the Earth Science Museum of Moscow State University.

The article presents an analysis of the exhibition activities of the Earth Science Museum of Moscow State University as an important component of scientific and educational work, significantly expanding educational and outreach activities. In accordance with the development of science and the socio-political situation in our country and the world, the topics of exhibitions, places and methods of their holding changed. At the same time, they reflected the current aspects of the 270-year history of Moscow University as if in a mirror.

The article provides a brief analysis of the 75-year history of the formation of scientific directions and research in the Scientific and Educational Museum of Earth Science of Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. The importance of maintaining and developing interdisciplinary research in the educational and outreaching process is substantiated.

The article draws attention to the relevance of studying the history of museological thought in Russia. The author notes the prospects of the biographical method of research, which makes it possible to trace the continuity of views, the motives for making certain decisions, and to build priorities more precisely. The ideas expressed in the recently published book "From the history of museological thought in Russia: the 20th century" are being developed. The paper analyses the biographies, contributions to the museum theory, and features of the creative path of several well-known domestic museum specialists such as M. Novorussky, N. Trotskaya, M. Farmakovsky, and L. Rakov. A more accurate representation of their role in the formation of museological knowledge, as well as noting common features of museologists of the 20th century, can be made possible by new publi-cations of sources appeared in the 2000s, mostly of personal origin.

The article presents the results of studies of a number of sections of Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) deposits in the Saratov Right Bank region (settlements Krasnyi Oktyabr’, Doktorovka, Kurdyum and Shirokoe), confined to the Yelshano-Kurdyum uplift. Oryctocenosis combines autochthonous (ichnofossils), subautochthonous (bivalves and gastropods) and allochthonous (ammonites, wood fragments) elements. Sedimentological and mineralogical indicators (ripple marks, desiccation cracks, wedge-shaped structures, cross-bedding, glauconite, and calcite veinlets), as well as fossil remains and features of their taphonomy, allow us to diagnose the coastal ecosystem of the epicontinental sea basin. In the ecosystem format, we see a variety of physico-geographical situations: areas of the bottom which are periodically actively bioturbated and hydrodynamically transformed into mature hardground; zones of active hydrodynamics with the formation of cross-bedding; and zones of subaerial surfaces with the possible development of stick soils. Reconstruction of the paleoecosystem is complicated by the presence of a number of natural facts that have not been unambiguously interpreted, images of which are given in the article. The studied sections are of interest from the standpoint of geoheritage. Selected natural facts are actively involved in the development of a number of geoscientific university museums.