ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Dale,

Your question is excellent, getting at the heart of what makes  
science centers valuable to their communities. And I would be  
interested to study also what  children learn about their parents in  
the course of a visit.

I have come to feel that Science Centers are wrong to style  
themselves as institutions of informal education, where through  
combinations of carefully designed programs and exhibits, a  
mysterious something called "science content" is transfered from  
overflowing reservoirs, into partly-empty, partly-full "containers" -  
the visitors' minds.  If we saw ourselves instead as institutions of  
informal learning, where visitors and staff share experiences that  
are valuable more for their context than their "content", the true  
potential of our field might be more effectively advanced.

Very little is learned in a single try. Practice, repetition, trial  
and error, and trial, trial again are the paths to understanding that  
science centers provide.  In giving children opportunities to show  
their companions, parents, or teachers what they know and what they  
want to learn, a science center strongly supports its mission.

all the best,

Tom Nielsen
The Exhibit Guys Inc.


On Apr 27, 2006, at 8:21 AM, Dale McCreedy wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
> ********************************************************************** 
> *******
>
> We (The Franklin Institute and GSUSA) developed an NSF-funded  
> national initiative to promote child-adult collaborative science  
> learning called Girls At the Center (GAC).  The Institute for  
> Learning Innovation evaluated the program.  The question I liked  
> best - derived from a conversation at the time with someone at the  
> Tucson Children's Museum - was used with adults and proved very  
> informative. "What did you learn about the child you came with  
> today."  Responses were rich and really captured the socio-cultural  
> nature of their experience.
> -- 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dale McCreedy, Ph.D. - [log in to unmask]
> Director, Gender and Family Learning Programs
> Franklin Institute Science Museum
> 222 N. 20th Street
> Philadelphia, PA  19103
> 215-448-1092 / 215-448-1219 (fax)
>
> http://www.fi.edu/tfi/programs/nsp.html
> http://www.fi.edu/tfi/programs/gac.html
> http://www.fi.edu/ppss/
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> ********************************************************************** 
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> More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
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