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Science in Society: science education in science museums and centres. 

1 Slide
Have you ever been in a science museum? Which one?

I'm going to speak about the relantionship between science and society and about the role that science centres and museums have in this context. But we'll speak also about democracy. Why democracy? 
Well, people always ask for more democracy,  even in countries that can be described as democratic. And democracy is related to knowledge.
Let me give you just an example. 
In about ten days in Italy there will be a referendum. Italian citiziens are called to express themselves about nuclear energy production. They will decide in favour of the building of nuclear centrals in Italy or not. As you know this is a controversial issue. When we speak about nuclear centrals we have to speak also about the incresing demand of energy on a global scale, about climate change, but also about safety, nuclear waste, environmental protection and human health.  
In order to make aware decisions on this kind of issues, scientific and technological knowledge is needed .

3 Nuclear energy is just an example. We can speak similarly about genetically modified organism, nanotechnology, neuroscience, global warming... for example. 

Science and technology are more and more present in our lives and citizens need to know more about science and need to form and express their opinions about these issues. On other hand the scientific community and other stakeholders should be aware that they have to negotiate with society the choices that involve them.

Good scientific education could help building the capability to face the complex issues of our times.

4 - But where does this democratic debate take place? 

Obviously, on the media. In particular old media (tv, magazines, newspapers, radios, etc..) still are the main source of informationa and today internet and new media have a very important role in this sense. But ofen the attension to these kind of issues on the media rises when is late the debate. For example some days before referendum, it is already too late to talk about debating. 

5 - A good scientific governance requires time to exchange and discuss information, opinions, beliefs, experiences.

6 - For over a decade, the European Commission, within the framework of the Science and Society programme, has been funding international projects devoted especially to design and experiment participation methods. Many of these experiments are taking place in science museums and science centres.

8 Decide, Dotik, Nanodialogue, Messengers, Meeting of minds, Alter-Net, Time for Nano, Nanototouch, Accent, Polka, are only some of this kind of projects funded by the Commission. 

9- It's interesting to note that scientific debate has become central also for institutions that are not directly connected to science, for example last summer I went to New York and visit the MOMA where “Rising Currents”, a temporary exhibition was going on to address one of the most urgent challenges facing the NYC: sea-level rise resulting from global climate change. This exhibition offers an important opportunity to foster new research and fresh thinking about the use of New York City's harbor and coastline, involving scientist, urban architects and citizens all together.

Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1031

10- Coming back to science museums they were born with the mission to facilitate the connection between science and common people and still today they are strongly concerned with educational tasks. Nowadays they have another emerging mission which is connected to the fostering of democratic debate. 

11- Why Science Museum and science centre are favored places to speak about science and society?
In science centres people can experiment formal and informal approches to science. 
Formal education refers to education conducted by the mainline educational system
Informal education refers to the systematic and cumulative aspects of everyday experiential learning

12 - Science centre are visited by different kind of public: 
school students, teachers, citiziens.

In this contest you can experiment activities for general public and more school oriented ones: 
hands-on exhibits, exhibitions, educational activities, workshops, conferences, meeting with scientists, participation games, debates, etc..

14 - Often scientists are involved in activities in science centres:  a tipical event in science centres are the scientist session but scientists often are directly involved in the design of exhibits, exhibitions, othes activities.  
●	15 - In this contest it's possible to communicate how science works. You can show Science in the social and cultural framework.
19 - In science museum you can also feel science as a process and human enterprise. Science is not a static body of knowledge but a continually evolving process. In this contest you can show the roles of models and theory, with their limits in terms of predictivity and uncertainty. Finally you can show that science is not just for scientists but for every one. 
●	
16 – 17- Mostra immagine rifiuti. 
For instance a modern trend in the science centre design is to choose scientif topic that are relevant for people in eveday experiences. (MOMA – how Manhattan have to adapt to sea level rising, but there are a lot of examples). 
This is one of them, As you know in many cities waste disposal is topical issue. This artworks are creative examples of attempts to engage people in this topic. 

20- There are many researchs for understanding the role of interest and motivation in the learning process. For example one research focused on the informal learning contexts was developed by museum evaluator Deborah .Perry. According to her studies exhibition design have to take into account several dimention, such as 

• Curiosity―The visitor should be surprised and intrigued.

• Confidence―The visitor should have a sense of competence.

• Challenge―The visitor should perceive that there is something to work toward.

• Control―The visitor should have a sense of self-determination and control.

• Play―The visitor should experience sensory enjoyment and playfulness.

• Communication―The visitor should be engaged in meaningful social interaction.

20 The reserch of Deborah Perry is part of the reports published by the US National Research Council that are recognized as one of most importat references at international level.  
Here is a sketch of some of their publications but of course you can find lots of licterature on these topics. 

22 But now stop with theory. Let's have a look at what people do in practice. 
I'm going to present some example of how the topic of Light is dealt with in science museums. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM91L965nq8&feature=player_embedded

LIGHTWAVE is an exhibition held at the Science Gallery in Dublin two years ago.  
LIGHTWAVE  was meant to explore light in science, technology and art, offering a fascinating glimpse into the world of light. As you have heard in people comments the key word are science butt also art or atmosphere. This is in line with what I was telling before about a good quality of informal exhibition. 
But this is just an example of how science centre can engage people in a scientific topic such as  “ligth”.
Oviously this is not the only one. There a lot of differente ways, exhibits, exbitions, that science centres and science museums can experiment. 
Another example is this verry common ehixbit in science centre: 
23 - Light Table 
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/NonSSPL/launchpad/light_table.aspx
Light Table in Science museum of London 

At Light Table peolple can play with and manipulate light using mirrors, lenses and filters. 
Simple and beautiful, Light Table shows the properties of light.

24 - Many science centres are committed with development of classroom resourses. 
From the their website you can download some support materials to replay the museum activities in other contexts,for example in school.  
Here an example from Science museum in London
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/educators/classroom_and_homework_resources/resources/3d_shadows.aspx
Thanks to this materials you can produce a color shadows from two different coloured light sources, then use colour-filtered glasses to give the illusion of a 3D shadow.  

25 - Cook Book by Exploratorim.
 Make your own museum exhibits! With this construction manual, the first in a series of three "Cookbooks," you'll receive our "recipes," or specifications, for building 82 exhibits related to light and images; vision; sound and hearing; electricity and magnetism; color; mechanics; and patterns. We also provide supplier and vendors lists.  

the first hands-on science centre, opened  in 1969 and still one of the most important worldwide. 

26 - When you talk about light in science museums you often also talk about vision and perception. 
“Light, color, vision” is very common path in science centres. In particular there are a lot of exhibits foused on optical illusions. 
Let's look at some examples.  
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/mona/mona.html
27 - Look at these two upside-down pictures of Gioconda (Mona Lisa)  
immagine
Now look at the same images right side up. 
28 - Immagine 
Two upside-down Gioconda may look strange (one perhaps stranger than the other), but turn them right-side-up and one looks normal, the other grotesque. Why? 

What's going on?
Since an upside-down face is not a familiar point of view, you may not have noticed that one of these pictures has been altered. In the right-hand photo, Gioconda's eyes and mouth have been turned around. It's only when the photos are turned right-side-up, and the view is more familiar, that you notice the real distortion. 
This is an exhibit at the Exploratorium where these pictures are mounted on rotatable disks.  In this way people are convinced that they are looking at the same images just rotaded. 

Do it you self
On your computer, access to photo-processing software and image-capture hardware. Try to capture your own face and flip the eyes and mouth. 

Video.  
29 - Another tipical example of exhibit based on pecpection is explained here by Richard Gregory, a neuroscienist and one the founders of Exploratiorium.  
http://richardgregory.org/experiments/video/face_crate.htm
of Richard Gregory playing an impossible triangle with the Devil's tuning fork. 
A research conducted with visitors looking at this exhibit showed that if one is asked to touch the nose of the hollow mask there is a difference in the result depeding on the velocity of the hand movement: if the hand is moved very slowly the movement ends where the nose should be if the mask was prominent, on the contrary if the hand is moved very fast one succeed in touching the real nose inside the hollow mask. This result is connected with the activation of two different neuronal patterns for the two different movements, the faster one being in some sense more instinctual and slower more, so to say,  rational.
More in general, visual perception is often governed by strong adjustments made by our brain (as we also have seen with the Gioconda) that are related to our experience in interpreting the surrounding reality. This is also true for color perception as you can see here
quadrato

Please look at this square for some tens of seconds as you were trying to see something behind it.
You should start to see something strange... ...and if you turn your eyes somewhere else you should see something that does not exist
Have you seen something strange? Which color?
If the experiment has been succesful you should have seen a cyan square.
The three fundamental colors in additive syntesis are green, blue and red that are also the three peak frequencies in the visible spectrum to which our receptors are sensible. If you look at a square in which one of three colours (for example red) is dominant then your brain compensates in some sense this excess in that color and the result is that you see another square whose color is the combination of the other two fundamental ones (in the case of red you should have seen a cyan square, which of course was not there). 
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Phys_p035.shtml

The DISTORTED ROOM is a full-sized room which is viewed with one eye through a viewing hole outside one window. The wall far from the view hole is not parallel to the nearby wall, but recedes from it. The tiles on the floor, the window frames, the ceiling moldings, etc. are all proportioned so that the far wall looks as if it were the opposite wall of a cube. As a result, people viewed in the room appear to change drastically in height as they walk from one side to the other. 

I hope these few examples have persuaded you about the peculiar kind of engagement in scientific topics that an informal learning environment provides, with special attention to the key dimension of engagement mentioned before.
(escono)
I would like to conclude with the words that a greek poet dedicated to one of most brilliant mind of hystory of Humanity, Ipazia d'Alessandria, a women, a mathematician, philosopher and astronomer. She was assassineted by Chirstian crowd who accused her of causing religious turmoil. So after many years, some 16 centuries she has become a symbol of the "freedom of thought". So this my tribute to this earth.  

Thanks for your attention
Hypatia (b. ca. AD 350–370, d. March 415) was a Greek scholar from Alexandria, Egypt, who is considered the first notable woman mathematician; she also taught philosophy and astronomy.