The essays in this volume are organised thematically. The first essay sets the scene by reviewing the present position and future potential of science museums as educational and cultural resources. The next section is devoted to the role of museum exhibitions and analyses how exhibitions deal with complex material. The third section is concerned with museum programmes and reports on the strengths and weaknesses of different museum programmes, ranging from gallery drama to the Boston Museum's innovative experiment with Science-by-mail.
Science museums are in the business of making science accessible to the public--a public constantly bombarded with new information and research results. How the public understands this information will affect what they expect and take away from a museum's exhibits and programs. Creating Connections looks at the public understanding of research (PUR) and how it affects what science museums do. What are the opportunities and critical issues in PUR? What strategies are working and what are some pitfalls? What can be learned from the media's experiences with PUR? Creating Connections will be an invaluable resource for science museum professionals who want to guide their institutions and their visitors toward a new understanding of and appreciation for current research.
The nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the display and dissemination of natural knowledge across Britain and America, from private collections of miscellaneous artifacts and objects to public exhibitions and state-sponsored museums. The science museum as we know it—an institution of expert knowledge built to inform a lay public—was still very much in formation during this dynamic period. Science Museums in Transition provides a nuanced, comparative study of the diverse places and spaces in which science was displayed at a time when science and spectacle were still deeply intertwined; when leading naturalists, curators, and popular showmen were debating both how to display their knowledge and how and whether they should profit from scientific work; and when ideals of nationalism, class politics, and democracy were permeating the museum's walls. Contributors examine a constellation of people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge. Taken together, the chapters in this volume span the Atlantic, exploring private and public museums, short and long-term exhibitions, and museums built for entertainment, education, and research, and in turn raise a host of important questions, about expertise, and about who speaks for nature and for history.
A provocative call for the transformation of science museums into "idea colliders" that spark creative collaborations and connections. Today's science museums descend from the Kunst-und Wunderkammern of the Renaissance--collectors' private cabinets of curiosities--through the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 to today's "interactive" exhibits promising educational fun. In this book, Michael John Gorman issues a provocative call for the transformation of science museums and science centers from institutions dedicated to the transmission of cultural capital to dynamic "idea colliders" that spark creative collaborations and connections. This new kind of science museum would not stage structured tableaux of science facts but would draw scientists into conversation with artists, designers, policymakers, and the public. Rather than insulating visitors from each other with apps and audio guides, the science museum would consider each visitor a resource, bringing questions, ideas, and experiences from a unique perspective.
The relationship between science and the public is one of the great contemporary debates. Understanding between scientists and non-scientists is a key figure in the dialogue and here the interpretation of science in museums has a vital part to play.
Controversy in Science Museums focuses on exhibitions that approach sensitive or controversial topics. With a keen sense of past and current practices, Pedretti and Navas Iannini examine and re-imagine how museums and science centres can create exhibitions that embrace criticality and visitor agency. Drawing on international case studies and voices from visitors and museum professionals, as well as theoretical insights about scientific literacy and science communication, the authors explore the textured notion of controversy and the challenges and opportunities practitioners may encounter as they plan for and develop controversial science exhibitions. They assert that science museums can no longer serve as mere repositories for objects or sites for transmitting facts, but that they should also become spaces for conversations that are inclusive, critical, and socially responsible. Controversy in Science Museums provides an invaluable resource for museum professionals who are interested in creating and hosting controversial exhibitions, and for scholars and students working in the fields of museum studies, science communication, and social studies of science. Anyone wishing to engage in an examination and critique of the changing roles of science museums will find this book relevant, timely, and thought provoking.
Answering questions such as whether the interesting parts of science be conveyed in sermons, poems, pictures and journalism, Knight explores the history of science to show how the successes and failures of our ancestors can help us understand the position science comes to occupy now.
The assumption that museum exhibitions, particularly those concerned with science and technology, are somehow neutral and impartial is today being challenged both in the public arena and in the academy. The Politics of Display brings together studies of contemporary and historical exhibitions and contends that exhibitions are never, and never have been, above politics. Rather, technologies of display and ideas about 'science' and 'objectivity' are mobilized to tell stories of progress, citizenship, racial and national difference. The display of the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is a well-known case in point. The Politics of Display charts the changing relationship between displays and their audience and analyzes the consequent shift in styles of representation towards interactive, multimedia and reflexive modes of display. The Politics of Display brings together an array of international scholars in the disciplines of sociology, anthropology and history. Examples are taken from exhibitions of science, technology and industry, anthropology, geology, natural history and medicine, and locations include the United States of America, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Spain. This book is an excellent contribution to debates about the politics of public culture. It will be of interest to students of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, museum studies and science studies.
This book presents research involving learning opportunities that are afforded to learners of science when the focus is on linking the formal and informal science education sectors. It uses the metaphor of a "landscape" as it emphasises how the authors see the possible movement within a landscape that is inclusive of formal, informal and free-choice opportunities. The book explores opportunities to change formal school science education via perspectives and achievements from the informal and free-choice science education sector within the wider lifelong, life-wide education landscape. Additionally it explores how science learning that occurs in a more inclusive landscape can demonstrate the potential power of these opportunities to address issues of relevance and engagement that currently plague the learning of science in school settings. Combining specific contexts, case studies and more general examples, the book examines the science learning landscapes by means of the lens of an ecosystem and the case of the Synergies longitudinal research project. It explores the relationships between school and museum, and relates the lessons learned through encounters with a narwhal. It discusses science communication, school-community partnerships, socioscientific issues, outreach education, digital platforms and the notion of a learning ecology.
Museums and Archaeology brings together a wide, but carefully chosen, selection of literature from around the world that connects museums and archaeology. Part of the successful Leicester Readers in Museum Studies series, it provides a combination of issue- and practice-based perspectives. As such, it is a volume not only for students and researchers from a range of disciplines interested in museum, gallery and heritage studies, including public archaeology and cultural resource management (CRM), but also the wide range of professionals and volunteers in the museum and heritage sector who work with archaeological collections. The volume’s balance of theory and practice and its thematic and geographical breadth is explored and explained in an extended introduction, which situates the readings in the context of the extensive literature on museum archaeology, highlighting the many tensions that exist between idealistic ‘principles’ and real-life ‘practice’ and the debates that surround these. In addition to this, section introductions and the seminal pieces themselves provide a comprehensive and contextualised resource on the interplay of museums and archaeology.
