Filter by keyword: Science centres and museums

May 13, 2024 Practice Insight

Prioritising community over content: value shifts in science centres

Science centres are increasingly adopting co-development as a tool to engage diverse audiences with science. The case study featured in this practice insight draws on an evaluation of a programme that aimed to move U.K. science centres towards more inclusive practice. Interviews with staff from eight U.K. science centres and their community partner organisations reflected shifts in science centre practitioners' understanding and valuing of co-development approaches, and, especially, the centrality placed on relationships with communities. This case study can contribute to our understanding and help us reflect on how to align our practice with a commitment to equity.

Volume 23Issue 032024

May 08, 2024 Book Review

Amplifying informal science learning: rethinking research, design, and engagement

by Graham J. Walker

An intriguing book on informal science learning in all its cultural and geographic diversity, deftly balancing theory, practice and the wondrous space in-between.

Volume 23Issue 032024

Mar 25, 2024 Practice Insight

Exhibition research and practice at CERN: challenges and learnings of science communication `in the making'

by Daria Dvorzhitskaia , Annabella Zamora , Emma Sanders , Patricia Verheyden , Jimmy Clerc

This practice insight paper presents a reflection on a four-year collaboration between science communication practitioners and researchers, using CERN's new education and outreach centre as a case study. The development of interactive exhibitions for this centre was informed by a variety of front-end and formative evaluation studies, from online surveys to exhibit prototype testing. As a multidisciplinary team of exhibition developers and social science researchers, we describe and discuss the challenges of — as well as learnings from — working together. Our experience will be relevant for everyone curious to discover `behind-the-scenes' work of research-informed exhibition development in a large scientific laboratory.

Volume 23Issue 022024Special Issue: Connecting science communication research and practice: challenges and ways forward (Connecting Science)

Dec 06, 2023 Article

Which scientist are you? Creating self-outgroup overlap with a scientist through a personality matching game

by Alexandra L. Beauchamp , Su-Jen Roberts , Craig Piper

Based in intergroup contact theory, we investigated how messaging about shared characteristics affects perceived closeness with scientists (i.e., self-outgroup overlap). In an online study, participants ($N=486$) played a personality matching game that matched them with a real scientist, then they responded to a survey. We replicated the study at a zoo ($N=63$) to examine implementation as a facilitated game. Self-scientist overlap improved in the online setting; in the in situ setting, trust increased, but not self-scientist overlap. Findings suggest that learning about how one scientist is similar to one's self can increase perceived closeness to scientists overall.

Volume 22Issue 052023

Jul 24, 2023 Practice Insight

Opening museums' science communication to dialogue and participation: the “Experimental Field for Participation and Open Science” at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

by Wiebke Rössig , Bonnie Dietermann , Yori Schultka , Suriya Poieam , Uwe Moldrzyk

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (Natural History Museum — MfN) established participation and exchange as central elements of the entire institution alongside its research. In order to experiment with formats and settings for dialogue-oriented exchange and participation, an area within the exhibition round walk was designated for this purpose in 2018. Over the course of three years, the “Experimental Field for Participation and Open Science” has developed the practice of opening the museum's research and collection in a dialogue-oriented, participatory way. Focus lies on museum visitors and on reaching new groups who are not in close contact with science yet. The practice of opening and participation was tested, reflectively accompanied, and further developed during the whole time period. This article describes the idea, concept, design, and the results of the external evaluation of the formats of dialogue-oriented and participatory outreach in the Experimental Field at the MfN. It gives an overview of underlying ideas, design of the space, and how the goal of creating mutually beneficial encounters and enabling participation and co-creation was addressed.

Volume 22Issue 042023

Jun 05, 2023 Practice Insight

Life and Death on the Tuapeka Goldfields — stakeholder input for a community museum's bioarchaeology-based exhibit

by Ruby Parker , Nancy Longnecker

This practice insight describes community consultation and creation of an exhibit that was installed in a local museum to share findings from research involving excavations of historic cemeteries. Two individuals who had been buried in unmarked sites in historic cemeteries in the town of Lawrence, in the Otago region of New Zealand were exhumed for bioarchaeological research that included biochemical methods. Results were combined with cultural and environmental information from the Otago goldrush era to reconstruct lives of these settlers and tell their stories in the exhibit described here. Community values about exhibit representations related to human remains were explored through 16 semi-structured stakeholder interviews. Interviewees overwhelmingly but not unanimously supported the creation of an exhibit about this research. Interviewees recommended things to exclude from the exhibit (human remains or images of them) as well as information and objects to include. Information was compiled from multiple sources, including: existing bioarchaeological research findings; interviews with descendant groups, community, and other stakeholders; and historical archives. Information from these multiple sources was combined to create osteobiographies of two individuals — a woman and a Chinese journeyman — who had lived in Lawrence during the goldrush period (1850–1910). These osteobiographies formed the basis of an exhibit that was created and installed in a community museum in the town where their graves were located.

Volume 22Issue 022023

Apr 03, 2023 Article

Socioscientific issues in science exhibitions: examining contributions of the informal science education sector

by Ana Maria Navas Iannini

This paper examines how a particular subset of informal science education settings — science exhibitions — embraces contemporary socioscientific issues (SSI) and fosters public engagement with them. A qualitative cross-case analysis of two SSI exhibitions about teen pregnancy (Brazil) and sustainability (Canada) was conducted. It revealed complex issues around operational funding, and institutional tensions related to the nature, balance, and relevance of the topics displayed. The analysis unravelled opportunities for SSI exhibits to engage with contextualized and situated knowledge; articulate the deficit model with other models of science communication; and consider visitors as agents of change.

Volume 22Issue 022023

Mar 06, 2023 Practice Insight

Contemporary multimedia applications in the cultural communication discourse of the museum

by Ádám Kuttner , Andrea Kárpáti

AR/VR applications are gaining prominence in exhibition communication. In this field research project, we developed an assessment model to identify major AV/VR application types and their functions. We then used this model to describe 32 contemporary multimedia exhibition applications in 12 countries. During our visits to the exhibitions, we assumed the perspective of the non-specialist visitor to better identify communicative effects of AR/VR applications and compare them with traditional guides developed for similar exhibitions. Our results show that these innovative sources of information may significantly contribute to visitor enjoyment as well as knowledge gain and retention.

Volume 22Issue 012023

Oct 12, 2022 Article

Changing attitudes toward scientists by reducing intergroup biases: how a signage intervention focused on decategorization and recategorization improved trust

by Alexandra L. Beauchamp , Su-Jen Roberts , Craig Piper

We experimentally examined how messaging strategies that prompted differences in how scientists are categorized as a group increased positive science attitudes among non-scientists. Results from the first study showed that messaging which personalizes science or highlights shared common identities with scientists diminishes outgroup effects through recategorization or decategorization, respectively. Study 2 largely replicated these results in an ecologically valid setting: a zoo. Collectively, these studies support the use of the recategorization strategy for improving trust and science attitudes, but produced less consistent effects for decategorization. The results emphasized the importance of contextualized messaging when creating effective appeals in science communication.

Volume 21Issue 062022

Sep 21, 2022 Conference Review

#ecsite2022 — a festive and reflexive gathering of science communicators

by Vanessa Mignan , Marina Joubert

The 2022 Ecsite conference took place in Heilbronn, Germany, from 2–4 June after two years of virtual meetings due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This review presents some highlights of this event, including two memorable keynote talks by disability activist Sinéad Burke and author/educator Lucy Hawking.

Volume 21Issue 062022

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