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At 16:20 06/12/2005, Ted Ansbacher wrote:
>This balls-rolling-down-tracks example nicely touches on a fundamental
>question that still vexes science centers--namely, what is the purpose of our
>exhibits. One prevalent answer is that we are helping visitors to LEARN
>science...

I believe people develop - to various degrees - a 'vocabulary of 
experiences'. By playing with real phenomena if we are children or 
'experimenting' if we are grown-up (same thing though).

I encountered a striking example of this a week or so ago. I was giving a 
talk to a well-educated adult audience, including some practical 
experiments with candle flames. I explained that the flame is hollow: a 
thin, glowing shell around a core of cooler gas. I set up several 
demonstrations that proved this is so. It was simple stuff. The entire 
audience understood and accepted the fact. I'm sure most of them already knew.

A bit later I inverted a kitchen sieve with a fine wire mesh across the 
mid-point of the candle flame. The flame was transected: luminous below the 
mesh, but only sooty smoke above. On the screen behind me, a close-up video 
camera showed a clear view looking down through the mesh into the hollow 
flame, like a little tube of fire. You could see it. There was an audible 
gasp from the audience. "Oh!" I heard people whispering. "It IS hollow!"

There seems to be a lot more to 'learning' than being able to answer 
questions correctly... In the kind of science centre I like best, the real 
stars of the show are the phenomena more than 'THE' (?) explanation. There, 
each well designed exhibit IS an explanation, for people to make of it as 
much as they can...


[log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
*
Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
*
Ian Russell  

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