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Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

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

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 Commentary

The professionalization of educators in science museums and centers

by Lynn Uyen Tran

Explainers have a longstanding presence in science museums and centres, and play a significant role in the institutions’ educational agenda. They interact with the public, and help make visitors’ experiences meaningful and memorable. Despite their valuable contributions, little research attention has been paid to the role and practice of these individuals. From the limited research literature that does exist, we know that museum educators employ a complexity of skills and knowledge. We also know such educators have a variety of experiences and qualifications – this creates a rich diversity within the field. Finally we know that the content and quality of programmes designed to educate novice explainers vary across institutions. Should we work toward a shared identity across institutions? Or even a “professionalization”? The paper explores the state of the art of the discussion around that questions.

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

Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

Peer learning: a strategy for practical explainer training

by Andrea Motto

Peer training provides Explainers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to facilitate high quality interactions with visitors. These are skills that carry into their academic, personal and professional lives. Explainers report better grades in school, improved communication skills and better understanding of diverse learning styles. By devoting this high level of time and attention to this valuable resource, we can truly see the significant influence the science center can have on this most valuable, and often underserved, museum audience.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Commentary

Experimenting mediation: a constant challenge

by Fatima Brito

The Science House of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) is a space where science is approached through the perspective of culture, seeking interdisciplinarity, stimulating debate among different areas of knowledge, and building a closer and more pleasant relationship between society and scientific knowledge. Work with mediators has gone through significant changes over time and the paths chosen have been modified, re-evaluated and transformed. The presence of mediators can mean the possibility of dialog, conversation, informal chat, and sharing. It has been one of the main channels of communication with the general public.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Dec 19, 2008 Book Review

How-to establish PCST. Two handbooks on science communication

by Alessandro Delfanti

In 2008 two collections were published: the Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology, edited by Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench, and Communicating Science in Social Contexts: New models, new practices, edited by Donghong Cheng and five other scholars from China, Canada, Belgium and Australia. These books try to define and draw the boundaries of science communication’s field from both a theoretical and empirical point of view. But do we need to establish it as a distinct research field? For a number of decades, a growing community of scholars and communicators is trying to reply positively to this question, but the need to look outside the disciplinary boundaries, to other academic fields, is still vital.

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 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

Public participation and rural management of Brazilian waters: an alternative to the deficit model

by Alessandro Luís Piolli , Maria Conceição da Costa

The knowledge deficit model with regard to the public has been severely criticized in the sociology of the public perception of science. However, when dealing with public decisions regarding scientific matters, political and scientific institutions insist on defending the deficit model. The idea that only certified experts, or those with vast experience, should have the right to participate in decisions can bring about problems for the future of democracies. Through a type of "topography of ideas", in which some concepts from the social studies of science are used in order to think about these problems, and through the case study of public participation in the elaboration of the proposal of discounts in the fees charged for rural water use in Brazil, we will try to point out an alternative to the deficit model. This alternative includes a "minimum comprehension" of the scientific matters involved in the decision on the part of the participants, using criteria judged by the public itself.

Volume 7Issue 042008

Sep 19, 2008 Commentary

From Land art to the “global era”

by Gaia Salvatori

In the globalisation era, arts have provided food for thought on “how latitudes became forms”, to stress again that now, at global level, one should no longer define art as a contemplation “space”, but as an “environment”, a place for experience. On the other hand, already when Bern saw the inauguration of the historic exhibition “When Attitudes became Forms” in 1969, people realised that the problem was lying in the behaviour, in the attitude, of making arts towards the world. Basically, the formalistic concept of self-referentiality in a work of art was to be overcome, and attention was to be paid to procedures and contexts. In search of a new humanism in contact with the natural universe.

Volume 7Issue 032008

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