The science center movement that gained momentum in the 1970s — and ASTC, the first organization to represent the field — were in many ways the creation of the scientific community. This article, published in the September/October 2007 issue of ASTC Dimensions, recalls key people and events that laid the groundwork for what was to become the informal science education field. Quoting longtime NSF program officer George Tressel, it expresses concern about the diminished role of scientists in science centers as many became "more a business."
In this article I critically examine the historical context of science education in a natural history museum and its relevance to using museum resources to teach science today. I begin with a discussion of the historical display of race and its relevance to my practice of using the Museum’s resources to teach science. I continue with a critical review of the history of the education department in a natural history museum to demonstrate the historical constitution of current practices of the education department. Using sociocultural constructs around identity formation and transformation, I
The past few decades have been marked by a rapid scientific and technological development. One of the most paradoxical, and perhaps more disturbing, features of this process is the growing divide between the increased importance science has acquired in economic and social life and a society persistently showing spreading signs of contempt, mistrust and, most of all, disinterest in research.
After serving the community for seven years, the Science Museum of Castilla-La Mancha (MCCM) has decided to renew itself. In this context, a survey of the needs and expectations of the people to which the museum is dedicated plays a major role for the changes planned to prove successful. Teachers are among the main users of the museum, staying at the core of all teaching-learning processes, and play a role as mediators between science and students. This paper analyses the judgements made by teachers about various types of events and teaching resources which are normally provided by science
ECSITE is the European network of science centres and museums (www.ecsite.net). The ECSITE Annual Conference, attended every year by several hundreds of professionals in science museums and science centres (870 at the last edition), and the ECSITE director forum, where full members of the association discuss on focused topics, are excellent observation points. Looking at what goes on in these meetings allows to track what is high on the agenda of the science-centre community, how the focus of interest moves, what are the main concerns of museum professionals.
For the purpose of this article, Science & Society (S&S) is referred to as that current of thoughts and those cultural initiatives aimed at fostering dialogue between research, scientific and technical output on the one hand and society on the other, so as to allow people to make conscious decisions about science and the sustainability of its developments. This concept underlies the elaboration of the MUSE cultural concept, the new Science Museum in Trent, Northern Italy.
Being aware of the fact that science is a decisive factor for development and individual well being and a citizen's right, no less important than all his other rights, Tunisia's new-Era initiated its Science City on 10 April, 1992. The purpose of such an institution is to disseminate science throughout the whole of Tunisia for the different categories of citizens and to help, in the context of dovetailing with the educational sector, youngsters get, from their earliest years, interested in science and its use.
In the Rafael Nieto Auditorium of the National Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi Mexico, few chairs are empty. The room is full of Astrophysics professors, Solid State of Matter, Elementary Particles, Fluid Mechanics, etc. It is the 49th National Congress of Physic. Today extraordinarily- it has slip into the program an analysis round table about the new outlines in science museums in Mexico.
What is the role of science museums nowadays? If we want to answer this question, we need to understand the historical period we are living and what role(s) museums can play. We are undoubtedly at the beginning of a new age based on a new relation between science and society, a concept which has been explained and repeated by sociologists and economists over and over again and is confirmed by statistics.
In a meta-analysis carried out in 2002, the two main associations of science centres and museums (ASTC, mainly US-centered, and ECSITE, mainly European) gathered all studies analysing the impact of science centres and museums on their local communities. Four types of impact were identified: personal, social, political and economical. It was noticed that the vast majority of studies concentrated on the personal impact (that is, learning outcome, visitor satisfaction, etc.), while the latter three were largely neglected. The very fact of pointing this out, and many recent experiences - some of
The Tomorrow People is a research report written by Museums Association deputy director Maurice Davies while he held a visiting fellowship at the University of East Anglia. It draws on the experience of over 100 museum managers, job-seekers, university lecturers, policy makers and junior staff. It identifies several problems with the way museums recruit and develop entry-level staff. The overall conclusion is that museums, and sector bodies, need to take far more responsibility for training and development of staff at entry-level and in their first few years in post. In addition, university
The article presents advice by the authors for helping middle school science teachers in the U.S. to plan field trips related to science education. The authors say that the teachers should try to make the field trips a significant learning experience. They should communicate the goals of the trips to the students. According to them, many science museums offer pretrip planning meetings to allow teachers to know the resources available for students. They also offer excellent web sites for planning the trips.