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Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

Mediation within science centres and museums. The guides of Universum, México

The creation of a scientific culture through the experiences that can be offered in a museum is the central theme in the training of guides at Universum. Emphasising the social importance of science democratisation, providing the public with the chance to enjoy science itself, conceiving it as a human creation of extreme beauty, giving it the chance to be appreciated and enjoyed, presenting it from the different fields where an approach to it is possible, is something difficult to achieve outside a science museum and impossible without the intervention of the anfitriones.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

The human body on Exhibit: promoting socio-cultural mediations in a science museum

by Silvania Sousa do Nascimento

This paper discusses three mediation concept approaches and, consequently, three facets of mediator action. The approaches presented start with a bibliographical review of the concept of mediation present in education and scientific communication studies. These approaches serve as a basis for interpreting a semi-directive interview with the director of the Museum of Morphological Sciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). They also help us reflect on the complexity of organizing the objectives of a museum action that takes into account the transformational role of the meaning of objects in interaction with different socio-cultural subjects. In conclusion, the museum's purpose in organizing a museum action using socio-cultural mediation approach and with the mediator as a passeur libre among exhibit objects and visitors is highlighted.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Editorial

Scientists, do it like Al Gore

by Pietro Greco

Human health has currently to face a growing series of global issues. From the spread of HIV/AIDS to a fresh outbreak of tuberculosis, increasingly drug-resistant, the world is witnessing a return, mostly unexpected, of infectious diseases. At the same time, the economic growth in many regions of the globe is generating a sort of “epidemics of wellbeing diseases”: obesity, diabetes, heart disease.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Article

Popularization of Science in Brazil: getting onto the public agenda, but how?

by Márcia Tait Lima , Ednalva Felix das Neves , Renato Dagnino

The importance the Brazilian government has given in the last few years to the dissemination of science points out the necessity of a more discerning analysis about the establishment of this subject on the public agenda and the related public policies undertaken. This work tries to contribute to the debate as an inquiry about the policies to popularize and disseminate Science and Technology (S&T) established by the Science and Technology Popularization and Dissemination Department, which was created in 2004. In order to do so, theoretical references from Public Policy Analysis, the Studies of Science, Technology and Society (SSTS), and Public Communication of Science are used. Furthermore, we analyze some of the results from research on Science and Technology Understanding carried out in Brazil in 2006. As a final point, this associated approach aims at identifying some of the limiting factors related to science dissemination actions in Brazil.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

The “Learning in order to Teach” project and mediation in museums using Brazilian sign language (Libras)

by Daina Leyton , Cibele Lucena , Joana Zatz Mussi

This article seeks to reflect on mediation in museums based on experiences that occurred in the “Learning in order to Teach” Project. In this case, the mediation acquires specific characteristics because it deals with young deaf people learning art-related contents in order to teach other youth in their first language. The most interesting aspect of this encounter between museum and deaf culture is a mutual, immediate and highly visible influence. While museum-goers and professionals understand that the “gestures” used by the deaf are not random (rather, on the contrary, they make up a complex language), new signs are created by the students based on the contents that are worked with and discovered in the museum. These new signs thus enrich the language itself and begin to circulate within the community.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

Trained to interact: echoes from the Workshop Sul-Americano de Mediação em Museus e Centros de Ciência

by Luisa Massarani , Paola Rodari , Matteo Merzagora

The initiatives focusing the professional development of explainers are multiplying around the world, building an informal network of researchers, museums managers and directors, explainers, and regional/continental networks, as THE group, the Thematic Human Interface and Explainers group of Ecsite.The Workshop Sul-Americano de Mediação em Museus e Centros de Ciência e Escola de Mediação em Museus e Centros de Ciência, which took place in Rio de Janeiro in September 2008, was a further important step along this path. We believe it is worthwhile to offer to Jcom readers some of the workshop contributions concerning the training of explainers, to which we added an overview of the general problem presented by Lynn Uyen Tran (Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley).

The professionalization of educators in science museums and centers

by Lynn Uyen Tran

Experimenting mediation: a constant challenge

by Fatima Brito

Mediation within science centres and museums. The guides of Universum, México

by Concepción Ruiz Ruiz-Funes

The human body on Exhibit: promoting socio-cultural mediations in a science museum

by Silvania Sousa do Nascimento

Peer learning: a strategy for practical explainer training

by Andrea Motto

The “Learning in order to Teach” project and mediation in museums using Brazilian sign language (Libras)

by Daina Leyton, Cibele Lucena and Joana Zatz Mussi

Explainers – New energy for the museum

by Sebastian Martin and Modesto Tamez

Volume 7Issue 042008

Sep 19, 2008 Letter

Science and scientists turned into news and media stars by scientific journals. A study on the consequences on the present scientific behaviour

by Carlos Elías

This article explores whether some scientists have now actually been developing a type of science apt to be published as a piece of news, yet lacking a relevant scientific interest. Possibly, behind this behaviour there may be the present working culture, in which scientists live under the pressure of the dictatorship of the Science Citation Index (SCI) of the reference journals. This hypothesis is supported by a study demonstrating that there is a direct relation between publishing scientific results in the press and a subsequent increase in the SCI index. Many cases are here described, selected among the papers published in Nature that – according to experts – have a media interest rather than a scientific one. Furthermore, the case of the Dolly sheep cloning is studied as a paradigm for a situation in which media coverage actually destroyed the research group.

Volume 7Issue 032008

Sep 19, 2008 Commentary

Ruminations on the role of artists in a world of science

by Edward Morris , Susannah Sayler

In January 2006, my wife Susannah Sayler and I set out to photograph landscapes around the world that were being transformed by global warming. We called our work The Canary Project. From the beginning, as now, we had both activist aims and artistic ambitions. These two types of motivation overlap in places and in other places feel completely distinct. In general, we feel as though are carrying forward a torch that science cannot carry any further. Following are some thoughts on our role as activists and as artists and as collaborators with the scientific community.

Volume 7Issue 032008

Sep 19, 2008 Book Review

Education and science museums. Reflections in Italy and on Italy

by Paola Rodari

The educational function of science museums was born with the first naturalistic collections ever, flourished in 16th-century Italy. The pedagogic thought and the educational experimentations carried out in approximately five century of history have allowed the educational mission of museums to acquire many different facets, drawing a task having an increasingly higher and complex social value. Recent publications explore these new meanings of an old role.

Volume 7Issue 032008

Sep 19, 2008 Article

Oficina Desafio – Challenging creativity

by Marcelo Firer

Oficina Desafio, Challenge Workshop, is a project of UNICAMP Exploratory Science Museum – the Science Center of the State University of Campinas (Brazil). It is an outreach project, consisting of a fully - equipped mobile workshop constructed on a truck, which visits schools and gives the students open solution real problems challenging them to “design, construct and operate a device” capable of solving the challenge. Analysis of the evaluation forms answered by school students reveals that participants of the challenges perceive it as a “learning opportunity”, in the sense they identify school related capabilities as conditions that increase the chance of facing the challenges successfully.

Volume 7Issue 032008

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