Palais de la decouverte in Paris, France

The Palais de la Decouverte (Palace of Discovery) is celebrating its 70th birthday this year and has quite a track record: a recent survey showed that 50% of the major scientists in France were inspired through one or more visits to the Palais during their youth. While currently enshrouded in scaffolding and undergoing a major renovation on the outside, there is still plenty to see inside.

The building is spectacular inside. Originally built for the 1900 World Exposition in Paris, the center was the later brainchild of a Nobel Laureate who believed that the public deserved more contact with scientific phenomena. To that end, the exhibits in the Palais are somewhat in the background, and often non-interactive.

The focus is decidedly on real science and contact with real scientists, so each subject area has one or more small amphitheaters. Paid explainers, who account for 30% of the staff, present more than 60 live shows daily. Shows are less theatrical than in some science centers, but visitors often linger afterwards for quite a while with questions. Since the presenters tend to be scientists (and not actors trained to present the shows), these conversations can become extensive. Here is a doctoral student presenting the show "Liquid Air."

There are 30 individual amphitheaters within the museum, and each one is different (seats, format, etc.) Funding for the Palais’s $20 million budget comes 75% from the government, with the remaining 25% from earned income sources such as admissions, gift shop, etc. and a few corporate sponsorships.

While at the Palais, we were invited backstage to speak with a firm from Boulder, CO, that was just finishing up the installation of a huge shake table as part of a new exhibition on volcanoes and earthquakes. We were able to take the first ride on this multi-level, 3-axis shaking machine, which was programmed to generate a Magnitude 7 event for us. Since our family had been close to ground zero for the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California (Mag 7.2), this ride felt all too familiar.

The Palais has made a strong effort at making the public more aware of global warming as an issue. Most recently, they have mounted a 6-month temporary exhibition on polar science and global warming while celebrating the 1937 scientific expedition of Paul-Emile Victor to Greenland 70 years ago.

The exhibition compares fauna at the two poles (polar bears live only in the arctic region, penguins only in the Antarctic) and has a number of exhibits demonstrating principles of ocean currents, icebergs, glaciers, albedo, and the food chain in cold marine climates. A section on Inuit culture includes many artifacts from the everyday life of people of Greenland.

Here is a view through a portion of the exhibition with various small rooms and exhibits on the science of ice and climate at the poles. This was an ambitious project that included natural history collections (re polar bears, etc.), cultural artifacts, and interactive exhibits on the physics of the poles. These last exhibits were themselves an experiment, and the developers expressed the difficulty of creating robust hands-on exhibits on the subject of ice and climate change.

A Danish artist, who had recently lived and taught in a small village of 300 (including 72 K-12 school students) created a poignant mini-exhibition of artwork done by her students. Our visit happened to coincide with the opening reception for the art teacher. 3 Inuit children were brought to Paris for a week, and one can hardly imagine their thoughts, having never before left their isolated village.

I was particularly taken by one piece of artwork, which depicted an elder talking with a youth about the old ways. Here you see the old man thinking about the fjords, hunting, polar bears and seals, while the boy is thinking about cans of Coke and fairy tales.

After a cycle of conversations on various aspects of Inuit life, the youth gains a new appreciation for some of the old values. However, given the speed of warming at the poles, it is possible that many of the activities associated with the old way of life may simply not be possible in the near future because of changes in climate.