ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. ***************************************************************************** As one with not enough work to do, allow me to insert my $0.02.... -----Original Message----- From: Ed Sobey [mailto:[log in to unmask]] I'm amazed that few people (museum visitors, staff, professional teachers) can watch a car roll down a ramp and report what happened. They just can't do it. (After a few pointed questions they can do it, but its' tough to get them to observe and report). If you can't observe and report, you can't do science. This is what should be going on in science centers - "Science" - the action verb. It is what we need. After engaging people to do something and getting them observe (accurately) and report, they must be able to ascribe some causes to the effects they observed. Few can do this. ("God made it go that way," "I'm not good at science," are typical responses from kids when asked by their car, boat, or rocket veered to one side). ================================== Ed - I agree with most of what you said, but part of it (especially the part above) brings up a li'l aphorism: "Specific questions yield specific answers." I agree with what you say about the need for better engaging the visitors, better presenting true science as opposed to a factoid blitz etc... but I'm not sure exactly what you think would help us do these things more effectively. Your argument speaks in general/theoretical terms - can you give some examples of presenting science well (or poorly)? And that's how a visitor might feel. Take your car + ramp example. You say most folks just can't report what happened? I'll take a stab at it: The car rolled down the ramp. Is that an accurate/good enough report? If not, why not? What was it you wanted? A talk on the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy? A description of the role gravity played, or friction or inertia? An explanation of simple machines (like the wheel + axle, or for that matter the inclined plane of the ramp)? A more precise description - like the length of the ramp, its height and how long it took the car to descend? I'm cautious about the cause/effect part too. I'm leery of signage/museum staff (or, just as often, parents of kids) who ask "Why do you think that happened?" I think that it's a perfectly valid answer to say "I don't know". Exhibits isn't my field of expertise by any means... but I know, for example, there are things that I can do as an outreach presentation in a school that are simply harder to do in an exhibit at a science center. Here, I'll get specific. I have a chemistry class that (pardon my horn-tooting) I think does a pretty good job of including the scientific method, as well as the raw facts about chemical reactions. This would be tough to do in an exhibit. Why? For starters, it's not necessarily an easy thing. It helps the students to have a person there who can answer questions and guide them to the next step if they get stuck. (And we can do this by saying "Let's find out by running another experiment, like so..." rather than flat out giving an answer.) Yet when the inevitable budget crunch happens at your center, isn't staffing the first thing to get the axe cause it's so expensive? Getting people on the floor full time is darn difficult, at least for us at the smaller centers. And I'll hypothesize that the reason so many exhibits are under glass/push a button/not actually interactive is that kids make a colossal mess and destroy things at a mind-boggling pace. Try doing an unsupervised exhibit with chemicals and watch your migraines begin. Let's not even get started on the safety issue. I'm not saying it can't be done. It just seems to me that better understanding of science (the active verb) in addition to science (the collection of facts) is essential for understanding (oh yeah, and ultimately for combating nonsense like ID). We grok this, we just have to start tackling the specifics of overcoming the barriers to doing it. Or something like that. Jonah Cohen Outreach & Public Programs Manager Science Center of Connecticut *********************************************************************** More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://www.astc.org. To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the message SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to [log in to unmask]