by Jameson Wetmore & Ira Bennett - Center for Nanotechnology in Society
Arizona State University, USA
There are approximately 300 science centers
in the United States. They range from two room centers in tiny towns to
enormous museums in Chicago and Boston. They vary widely from place to place,
but typically they have three goals: First, they try to relate basic scientific
facts so that the lay public can understand them. Second, they seek to inspire
young people to consider science and engineering as a career. And third, they
attempt to entertain so that families and children will want to return again
and again.
Because science and technology play an ever
increasingly important role in our daily lives, there is currently a movement
to add a fourth goal to the list. To be
an informed citizen one must not only follow the obvious social issues like
taxes, international relations, and heath care, but also the research and
technologies that shape our world. Understanding
the big bang theory or the ways that molecules interact might be able to assist
in this process, but perhaps even more important is an appreciation of the
variety of ways in which science and technology affect communities and vice
versa. As science centers are both trusted and one of the few places where the
general public actively engage science, they could provide a space for such
engagements.
The Center for Nanotechnology in Society atArizona State University (CNS) and the Nanoscale Informal Science EducationNetwork (NISE Net) have been working together over the past half decade to
develop ways for museums to engage the public in discussions about the social
implications of nanotechnology. The early part of the collaboration produced
nano and society posters,
forums, table top demonstrations, scripts, and a Frequently Asked Questions webpage. The
most recent phase of the collaboration has been a series of two day workshops
to train museum floor managers in ways to help their staff engage with
questions about nanotechnology and society and the public. In September and
October these workshops trained a hundred professionals from over fifty
different museums.
The workshops were broken up into two
primary components. First, they gave museum professionals a basic introduction
to the social aspects of science and technology. They were boiled down to three
basic ideas: 1. Technologies are a result of and shape values; 2. Technologies
affect social relationships; and 3. Technologies cannot be understood as
separate from larger systems.
In the early development of the workshops,
however, the organizers realized that teaching content went only so far in
helping museum professionals grapple with the social aspects of technology.
Exhibit interpreters are used to being experts that convey scientific
knowledge. But facilitating conversations was not something they were used to.
Thus the second component of the workshops was focused on helping participants
developing a certain level of comfort with listening to what visitors have to
say and giving them space for sharing their ideas.
Our visit to the Genomics Forum in November
was largely motivated by a desire to learn how our museum colleagues in Europe
are trying to facilitate conversations rather than just serve as a depository
of scientific expertise. It gave us a chance to explore the Museum of
Scotland’s science exhibits as well as Dynamic Earth. We found museum interpreters
who were enthusiastic about engaging the public and developing programs to
facilitate conversations. Emma Frow, assistant director of the Forum also
helped to organize a half day workshop that brought together a number of public
science professionals from Scotland including representatives from the
previously mentioned museums as well as Surgeon’s Hall, the Royal Botanic
Gardens, and others. We found that there is a sincere commitment to engaging
publics in broad conversations at these places and hopefully we were able to
offer some constructive examples for continued developments in Scotland.
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