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.
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
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Daina LeytonCibele LucenaJoana Zatz Mussi
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
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Marcia Tait LimaEdnalva Felix das NevesRenato Peixoto Dagnino
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
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Alessandro Luis PiolliMaria Conceicao da Costa
Science magazines have an important role in disseminating scientific knowledge into the public sphere and in discussing the broader scope affected by scientific research such as technology, ethics and politics. Student-run science magazines afford opportunities for future scientists, communicators, politicians and others to practice communicating science. The ability to translate ‘scientese’ into a jargon-free discussion is rarely easy: it requires practice, and student magazines may provide good practice ground for undergraduate and graduate science students wishing to improve their
This article offers a 1953-present day review of the models that have popularised DNA, one of the fundamental molecules of biochemistry. DNA has become an iconic concept over the 20th century, overcoming the boundaries of science and spreading into literature, painting, sculpture or religion. This work analyses the reasons why DNA has penetrated society so effectively and examines some of the main metaphors used by the scientists and scientific popularisers. Furthermore, this article, taken from the author's PhD thesis, describes some recent popularisation models for this molecule.
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Sergi Cortinas Rovira
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This document contains the proceedings from the Natural Science Gallery Symposium held by the Oakland Museum of California on September 15 & 16, 2008. Attendees discussed plans and ideas for an updated design of the Natural Science Gallery.
In 2010, a museum and cultural center, Maison des civilisations et de l'unité réunionnaise, will open on Reunion island, Indian Ocean, in a park of 22 hectares overlooking the ocean. Reunion is a small island, uninhabited when it was colonized by the French in the 17th century, whose society has gone through two centuries of slavery, a century of colonialism and barely sixty years of postcolonial democracy. Colonialism erased the material traces of the lives of slaves, indentured workers and poor settlers who, despite the brutality of colonial order, created a rich, complex, and very diverse
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), as an active cultural promoter, implemented a virtual museum system in order to help and develop expression related to art, science and humanities. The UNAM's cultural heritage is, as in many other universities, a vast number of different kinds of objects, ranging from painting and sculpture to numismatics and architecture, from traditional art to modern multimedia-based exhibits to Scientific Collections. It is impossible to exhibit it all in a single place in an orderly fashion. The Virtual Museum of the University's Cultural Heritage
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Francisco CaviedesEsther de la HerranAndrea VitelaA. Libia CervantesJose MondragonAlma RangelJose SilvaIldiko PelczerFrancisco SalgadoAdidier Perez-GomezCarolina Flores-IllescasJose CasillasGraciela de la TorreJorge ReynosoRafael SamanoJulia MolinarJose Manuel MaganaAlejandrina EscuderoAriadna Patino
In the fall of 2007 the Doig River First Nation, an Aboriginal group from northeastern British Columbia, launched its Virtual Museum of Canada-funded Web exhibit Dane-Wajich: Dane-zaa Stories and Songs: Dreamers and the Land. This exhibit was produced by the First Nation in collaboration with ethnographers, linguists, and multimedia professionals. It integrates subtitled Dane-zaa and English video narratives, interpretive e-text, photographs of the production process, recordings of songs, and contemporary and archival images of traditional lands in order to showcase Dane-zaa culture and
The study provides the first major review of public finance for the museum sector. It explores public support from federal, state, and local government sources, focusing particular attention on levels of financial support and types of delivery mechanisms.
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Carlow ManjarrezCarole RosensteinCeleste ColganErica Pastore
The story from the museum may not be read by visitors, who come with their own knowledge and understanding and read a different story in the animals. The visitors read a story which makes sense to them and builds on what they already know and interests them. Increasingly, robotics models are being used in natural history museums, science centers, and zoos to attract visitors and tell some kind of story. What do the visitors actually talk about when looking at such robotic animals? The visitors reported on in this paper were primary school groups and families. Do they talk about similar things