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Since I went a little overboard on my last post on this issue, and have yet to have a chance to answer all the emails I got offline on it, I would like to make some small points here:
1. Jonah, why do you think all of these things are so undoable? Some of them are quite doable and are done. Museums, science centers, and cultural centers, and art museums bring in musicians, cooks, artists, and artisans from around the world to their towns. Right now on the National Mall you can here musicians from the Mekong Valley and Northern Ireland. It is kind of expensive, sure, but compared to what? The creation and traveling and maintenance of the latest Grossology exhibition? The construction and operating budget of an iMax theater? Please. And no it would not be for one concert. It would be for a concert, a few workshops, and even an oral history for the archives.
Can we take people under the South Pole or up Mount Everest? Jonah has cheated a little picking the most inaccessible, but on the other hand, SI Travel can take you to the South Pole, I am not sure if they go under it. Other museums and science centers sponsor educational trips around the world and to nearby locations of scientific interest.
The burning oil well fire would be difficult, but for the price of airfare and a week's hotel you could bring in someone who has been there and fought them for programming.
And it need not be to replace a film or exhibition, but enhance.
And enhance it does. I must admit I am moving soon and changing jobs, so all of my books and journals are packed away, so excuse the lack of specific citations, but "real" objects have a demonstrably positive effect on learning. According to the work reported in the book "Presence of the Past" by Rosenzweig and Thelen, museums are the most trusted source of information about History. More than text books, more than teachers, and certainly more than the press and movies. The reason is we have "the real stuff." It is not too hard to extrapolate these findings to science and other areas of informal learning and create a hypothesis about people's views and recall of different science topics in a variety of formats.
To pick up on one of Jonah's examples, do you think our visitors have more trust, would learn more, and recall better a film about Giant Squid at an iMax or actually seeing one in an aquarium, or a program with a squid expert with appropriate supporting specimen and artifacts? I know where to put my money.
I have much more to say on this topic, but I am late for lunch where I will enjoy food created by cooks from Northern Ireland and listen to musicians from Thailand.
Matthew White
Director, Hands On Science Center
National Museum of American History
On Monday, July 02, 2007, at 08:16AM, "Ami Dror Gmail" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
>*****************************************************************************
>
>Hi John,
>
>You have pin-pointed a critical point that I'm emphasizing whenever I work with science educators all around the world.
>
>Personally I'm amazed that science centers that took the lead with large format visualization 25 years ago are left behind with 3D visualization.
>
>Not many years ago, if you had a story to tell - you had to spend 10-20M$ in order to turn your "story" into immersive visual experience (Mainly 70mm films) - today, a great 3D production can cost less then 150,000$ (about 10,000 per minute).
>
>Not many years ago, if you wanted an immersive theater - you had to pay 5-6M$ for the theater...today you can convert your auditorium to 3D for less then 100,000$ and you can even find companies that will pay it for you (if you charge entrance fee)
>
>Digital visualization is much better and much cheaper, but surprisingly I do not see many SC that are "telling new stories". Unfortunately, most of the SC prefer to walk the easy path and pay millions to enterprises instead of leading the way with fresh new immersive 3D stories.
>
>Ami
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Informal Science Education Network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Bowditch
>Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 4:58 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Keeping it Real?
>
>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
>*****************************************************************************
>
>Hi Jonah,
>
>I agree, as far as it goes. The question is how much glitz do you need
>to get there? Does the movie screen have to be 70 feet tall and wide to
>get the point across? I'm a great believer in "I-Min" where the
>resources required are much smaller, etc. I also think that maybe there
>are subjects that simply fall outside the scope of what we do. There are
>so many things we can show that are accessible in our environment why go
>for things that can't adequately be shown?
>
>I'm just a bit conservative, I guess. I think a lot of money is being
>spent to try to do things that don't work all that well anyway. And then
>there's the matter of commercial factors rearing their heads. Very few
>museums can afford to make their own appropriate films and so they rent
>stuff instead. This leads to inappropriate films being shown just to
>fill the seats.
>
>John Bowditch
>Exhibits Director
>Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Informal Science Education Network
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jonah Cohen
>Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 9:10 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Keeping it Real?
>
>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
>Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
>institutions.
>************************************************************************
>*****
>
>A session at the conference a few years back (titled, I think, "Faking
>It" - Eddie Goldstein was Master of Ceremonies) was really great, and it
>was all about the merits of simulation/metaphor vs. reality.
>
>But to answer John's question, below.... is your museum going to take
>visitors to a REAL tropical rain forest? Or get up close and personal
>with real humpback whales, or attacking 6 foot long squid? Really take
>folks scuba diving under the ice at the south pole, or to a massive oil
>well fire? Going to bring in musicians from Brazil, Africa, Japan and a
>whole lot of other countries for a single, real concert? Really take
>people into space? Or on a real climb up Mount Everest?
>
>Cause those are all things I immediately recall seeing in IMAX movies at
>science centers. Maybe really doing them would be better than seeing the
>documentary movie (or maybe not - I also recall the description of
>climbers on Everest coughing so hard they suffered cracked ribs), but
>that approach has issues. And the IMAX version was a rather cool
>substitute.
>
>Jonah Cohen
>Outreach & Public Programs Manager
>The Children's Museum
>
>"If everyone is thinking alike, no one is thinking."
> -Bill Walton
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Informal Science Education Network
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Bowditch
>
>Hi All,
>
>I agree with this too! What ever happened to artifacts and REAL things
>and exhibits?
>
>John Bowditch
>Exhibits Director
>Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum
>
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