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

One more note on the microscope discussion:  I don't think anybody has
questioned Wayne's implied definition of a "real" microscope ("My issue with
Wentz scopes is that at times I want the visitor to use a real microscope.")

I'll argue that the Wentzscope is a real microscope, as are the various
video microscopes others have suggested.  There ARE fake microscopes--ones
sold for classrooms that look like compound microscopes but are not.  They
are simply slide viewers, and in place of an actual biological specimen,
there are small small photographs on plastic slides.  The photographs were
taken through a real microscope, and that's as close to real as these get.  

A real microscope has a compound lens system and lets you see a real-time
view of an object of your choosing.  A Wentzscope meets this definition, as
do traditional laboratory microscopes, video microscopes, scanning electron
microscopes, and so on.  The school "microscope" I've described is intended
to deceive, and offers no advantages over looking at a photograph except
that it tricks students into thinking they are using a real microscope.

I am sympathetic with Wayne's desire to give visitors an experience with an
instrument identical to those which professionals use, and which visitors
will recognize as such.  Many professionals today use video microscopes, or
other devices that look nothing like the traditional design, but visitors
probably don't realize that.  So putting a classic Zeiss, Bausch & Lomb,
Olympus, or other expensive instrument out seems to be an attractive
proposition.  The difficulty is that they tend to be difficult to use and to
break easily.  Setting up visitors for failure isn't something we want to
do.  

When the NY Hall of Science was developing its first microscope-intensive
exhibition 20 years ago, we bought one of every major brand of microscope
for prototype testing.  We needed fairly high magnification to see living
microbes.  The microscopes we bought either broke down, or visitors couldn't
figure out how to use them, or both.  We also surveyed microscopes in
museums around the world, and didn't find anything that worked, with the
exception of an early video microscope and a projection microscope, but both
were too bulky and expensive for us.  In France I saw an elaborate
exhibition with Zeiss research grade microscopes.  The microscopes were
surrounded by custom plexiglass cases, and only a couple of controls could
be manipulated with friction-clutch knobs on shafts that stuck out of the
cases.  Even so, all of the microscopes in the exhibit were broken and
unusable.  

In response to our problem, Budd Wentz, who was a consultant for us at the
time, finished a design he had in mind for years, and produced the first
wooden-body Wentzscope.  The rest of the story you know.

So I see the challenge not one of getting real microscopes on the exhibit
floor, but finding a way so that visitors realize that video microscopes or
Wentzscopes are just as real as the iconic ones seen on television in crime
labs.

Alan

****************************************************
Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D.
Consultant
Museum Development and Science Communication
29 West 10th Street
New York, New York 10011 USA
T  +1 917 882-6671
F  +1 212 673-2279
E  [log in to unmask] 

***********************************************************************
More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://www.astc.org.

The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html.

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]