Charlie's European Museum Crawl

What Now???

2007-10-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

The visit to Nacka Nature School was the final stop on my 3-month European tour. After returning to Munich for the last time, I flew to Los Angeles for the 2007 annual conference of the Association of Science-Technology Centers. Attended by nearly 2,000 delegates, this is the largest regular gathering of informal science education professionals and best place to get a sense of where the field is headed. It was my 17th year at the conference.

While I’ll leave a review of the conference to others, I would like to offer a few observations.

First of all, the topic of climate change was on everyone’s mind. Two years ago, intelligent design was part of many conversations. Last year, there really wasn’t a hot topic per se. In fact, ASTC’s campaign on global warming, called “IGLO,” was still new and struggling to gain traction.

This year, things were very different. Climate change was mentioned in almost every other conversation and at the highest levels. Even the after-dinner show at the conference banquet, generally a lighthearted event with local dance cloggers or an entertaining speaker, was devoted to a new high-energy, multimedia program on the poles and climate change, featuring live polar scientists and Andy Revkin, a well-published reporter from the New York Times who has covered the global warming beat for a long time. Dubbed “Polar Palooza,” the program was introduced by Walter Staveloz, who heads up ASTC’s IGLO project on global warming.

So what’s next?

Barring the unforeseen, this will be my last post to this blog. I will be writing up some observations on how European museums were representing the issue of global warming as of the summer of 2007. You can look for something by the end of the year – check http://www.sciencenter.org/ for a free download.

I also plan to write an article and share a few thoughts at future conferences, as opportunities come up.

At the Sciencenter, I look forward to working together with our staff and its new Green Team to see how we can further reduce our carbon footprint, become more sustainable as an organization, and use our experience in science and education to help accelerate the international effort to reduce global warming and its impacts.

For those interested, here are a few statistics:

35 science-related museums in 10 countries visited

50 museums (all types) visited

155 pages of notes transcribed

8,000 photos catalogued

27,000 km traveled

3,500 kg of CO2 generated by the travel

$55.08 in associated CO2 offsets purchased (via ClimateCare.org)

* * * * * * * *

I am thankful to everyone who has helped to make this tour possible. In addition to all of the wonderful museum people I met, who are far too numerous to list here individually, I would like to acknowledge the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn for their financial support, the board of trustees of the Sciencenter of Ithaca, NY for granting me sabbatical leave with salary, Lara Kimber for not only filling in for me as executive director but also moving the organization forward in my absence, and the Deutsches Museum for hosting us in Munich.

I am grateful to my wife Nancy Trautmann for taking this adventure with me and providing so many good ideas and a regular sounding board along the way. Finally, I would like to close the loop by thanking her mother Ruth Morton, who is a constant source of inspiration to me and all who know her.

Grasping Climate Exhibition at the Nacka Nature School, near Stockholm, Sweden

2007-10-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Nacka Nature School is one of about 80 nature centers funded by municipal governments throughout Sweden. The city of Stockholm and its surrounding towns alone support some 15 nature centers. The existence of these nature centers represents an interesting statement about the priority of the environment in Swedish government and society.

The Nacka Nature School serves 2,000 students annually via field trips and has a staff of 2 that operates with a budget of US $150,000. All school classes in Nacka (the funding municipality) may take a free, all-day field trip to the center each year, while schools from outlying areas pay a small fee.

The staff of the center had seen the travelling exhibition “Grasping Climate” when it appeared at the Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm about 20 km away and thought it would be a good way to anchor a unit on sustainability they were planning for this school year. They asked their municipality to sponsor the exhibition for 4 months ($40 K plus shipping) and said they received immediate and enthusiastic approval.

“Grasping Climate” is a highly interactive exhibition on alternative energy that was developed and is now being toured by Teknikens Hus (a science center in Lulea, Sweden described earlier in this blog). Initially, visitors watch a 10-minute video, produced by Science North (a large science center in Sudbury, Canada) in which a cartoon sheep narrator introduces the science of global warming.

The exhibits are very intereactive and demonstrate various principals of alternative energy, including: solar power…

Wind power…

Wave power…

Hydro power…

and hydrogen power.

“Grasping Climate” also provides a few thought-provoking exhibits on transportation and personal actions, such as a comparison of the CO2 emission from cars, trains, and planes.

A Magic Planet (an exhibit consisting of a globe with an internal projector that can show images) cycles between day and night views of the world, the night view making an impression on visitors by showing a world that is remarkably well lit after sundown. In this image, you can see the US at night, with most of the eastern half mostly lit up.

The exhibition concludes with a series of 5 vertical Plexiglas tubes with a supply of pebbles and “what if” scenarios that invite visitors to make a personal commitment to reducing their energy consumption and CO2 emission by dropping a pebble into a tube corresponding to a particular action (such as reducing automobile travel).

Tom Tits Experiment in Sodertalje, Sweden

2007-10-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

Tom Tits Experiment was frequently recommended as a favorite science center by nearly all who had visited it. The center is housed in an old brick factory building, located about 40 minutes by train from the center of Stockholm. It was well worth the effort to get there.

First, a bit about the name… According to legend, the name derives from a character in French history. Although the exact details are not known, Tom Tits is believed to have dressed as a clown and performed science demonstrations for the public at the base of the Eiffel Tower. There is also a 17th century book titled “Tom Tits Experiment” displaying interesting science phenomena, and the center has kept this tradition alive by publishing a number of books (mostly in Swedish) with hands-on experiments that people can do with simple, everyday materials.

The center reminded me of the early days of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum except more so, with 4 floors of very interactive, home-brew quality exhibits in a brick firehouse. The aesthetic is simple: wood and everyday materials wherever possible and keep visitors as close as possible to the phenomena.

“Science is Everywhere” would be the best way to describe it, with small creative touches on floors, walls, and ceilings everywhere. For example, the tables in the café have glass-topped boxes embedded in them with things like the amount of formula used by a baby or different types of grains, and even the cashier’s countertop is an educational exhibit on different types of beans as seen here,

while a window in a stairwell indicates its dimensions in mm so visitors can develop measurement sense.

A large outdoor science park covers about 10,000 m2 (the same area as the inside displays) and has a vast network of water exhibits, a huge centrifugal force carousel, and some great optical illusions and sound exhibits. The plantings were superb, with an amazing array of flowers and other plants everywhere.

The center also runs a highly successful pre-school for 60 children. This school has a rich environment, with many colorful rooms and lots of science, and it uses the exhibit areas in the science center as well. With a staff of 12, the school takes children between 7 am and 6 pm. Most children attend for 5-6 hours. While I was visiting, an organized group of leaders from other Swedish pre-schools was there for the day to learn about how this one works.

Tom Tits has a staffed workshop for the public (shown here), where visitors can construct various projects for a small materials fee.

In addition to its own exhibits, the center builds traveling exhibits; however, they are used primarily by schools and other non-museum venues. The center is also about to develop a series of interactive exhibits to be mounted permanently at various locations within the city.

Significantly, the organization itself has done much to operate according to its core values as they relate to sustainability.

For example, food waste is composted all year long with this device. Also, the center is currently seeking certification for sustainability in accordance with Swedish standards. A long-term goal is a significant reduction of its carbon footprint through renewable energy and changes in the use of transportation.

One of the lasting impressions was the creative way in which every possible opportunity to use everyday materials had been exploited. From an auditorium laid out as a periodic table...

to a chandelier made of bones in the human body area, this center is one of the richest learning environments out there.

National Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, Sweden

2007-10-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

The National Museum of Natural History is a large and impressive museum in Stockholm, with some 10,000 m2 of exhibitions and 200 curators, researchers, and museum staff.

The entrance to the museum from the street is through a colorful and playful garden in the shape of a butterfly.

The museum mounted a major permanent exhibition on global warming in 2004 called “Mission: Climate Earth.” This exhibition, developed at a cost of about US $ 1 million, was inspired by a museum board member who is also a climate researcher and believed that the museum should stay ahead of the curve by bringing this topic to the public through a comprehensive exhibition, professionally designed and scientifically accurate.

The exhibition covers a number of aspects of global warming, including the difference between weather and climate, the geologic perspective on climate change, what individuals can do, and a sociological perspective on global warming.

The exhibition covers roughly 600 m2 and is primarily non-interactive, although a number of interactive exhibits have been added to highlight climate phenomena. Examples of interactive exhibits include several Exploratorium favoritos such as the tornado, turbulent orb, and water vapor ring. Several computer workstations cover topics such as El Nino, global temperature modeling, and calculating your carbon footprint.

A short but impressive multimedia presentation called “Eye of the Storm” plays in a well-designed theater located in the center of the exhibition. It impresses on visitors that major changes are coming and concludes with the question “Which path will you take?”

The exhibition is widely used by school groups, who can download the entire exhibition text and class worksheets from the museum’s website.

The museum has many other permanent natural history exhibitions. Two popular exhibitions involve dinosaurs and the 4.5-billion-year history of the Earth. A human body exhibition is perhaps the most widely used of all and is also the most interactive.

A particularly interesting temporary exhibition features the life and works of Carl Linnaeus, a Swede who developed the system of biological taxonomy still widely used today and whose 300th birthday is being celebrated this year.

One tidbit of administrative trivia for those who follow visitor data in museums: In 2004-5, the museum charged the equivalent of about $10 for an adult (18 years and up) ticket and hosted about 350,000 visitors. In 2006, the Swedish government decided that everyone should be able to visit the museum free, so admission fees were eliminated, and attendance jumped to 700,000. This year (2007), the government dropped the free admission program, and the museum went back to an adult charge of about $7. In response, attendance has dropped, despite the poor weather that has had many museums in Europe seeing record attendance. The museum is now hoping for about 400,000 visitors this year. This unplanned experiment might be of interest to museums that are experimenting with admission fees.

Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm, Sweden

2007-10-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Stockholm sports over 70 museums, a number of whick involve science in some way. The Museum of Science and Technology is one of these major science-related museums and was inspired (as was the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in the U.S.) by the Deutsches Museum (the directors having been colleagues).

Founded in 1924 and moved to its current location in the 1930s, the entry gallery to the museum has collections on power and transportation, anchored by a huge steam engine that staff members can operate (though not with steam). Included in this gallery are cars, planes, bicycles, motorcycles and some Swedish engines, hydropower turbines, and related hardware.

One corner of the main entry gallery leads down to a mine exhibition, which takes visitors through the history of mining in Sweden, some of the major mining products, the smelting process, and products made from Swedish ores.

Other older galleries include a machine shop with overhead leather belt-driven equipment.

Nearby is a room devoted to Swedish inventions, including the Crescent-type adjustable wrench, the centrifugal cream separator used on farms, and the first taxi-fare meter.

One room highlights the work of Christopher Polhem, an early industrialist and engineer who developed a factory using mass production in the late 17th century and then, as a teacher of technology, created an “alphabet” of 80 mechanisms. He believed that a person could invent any conceivable machine using these mechanisms, and the museum has four cases of them, dating back 300 years (these are believed to be all that survive).

One gallery is devoted to Swedish women inventors and highlights a number of their devices, ranging from automobile seats that are more comfortable to a pocket defibrillator to an anti-rape belt that requires two hands to undo (presumably allowing the victim time to get away or strike the attacker).

A very popular area of interactive exhibits called “Teknorama” includes a number of hands-on favorites ranging from pulleys, levers, and gears, to the ubiquitous “Mind Ball.”

Although the museum does not have any current exhibits related to climate change, it hosted an interactive exhibit on alternative energy in the recent past called “Grasping Climate.” The exhibition was developed by Teknikens Hus in Lulea, Sweden and will be reviewed in a subsequent posting.

Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden

2007-10-06T12:02:00.001-07:00

The Swedish Academy in the Old Town of Stockholm is home to the Nobel Museum, which celebrates the distinguished scientists and peacemakers who have won prizes in the five areas of Physics, Chemistry, Biology/Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

The museum is relatively small and quite doable. An entry exhibition area displays the history of the prize, while two amphitheaters show looping 3-4 minute videos of the lives of various prize winners and how they came to their creative ideas that led to their prize.

Overhead is a constantly moving display of all the Nobel Prize winners over the years.

A changing exhibit area had an exhibition of black and white photos called “Images of War and Peace,” with a number of poignant scenes from the two world wars.

An adjacent room had players and headphones for listening to audio clips of selected acceptance speeches and toasts made at award dinners.

Another room was devoted to the life and “The Famous Will” of Alfred Nobel, and a “cabinet of creativity” displayed a set of objects that inspired various creative ideas leading to prizes.

Being a Cornellian, I was excited to see two familiar objects in this cabinet: first, a Cornell dining plate, representing Richard Feynman’s early experience at the university during which he watched a student spinning a plate on his finger at one of the dining halls and observed a relationship between the wobble-frequency and the angular velocity that eventually led to his electron-spin theory and the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Also in this curio cabinet was a ear of corn, which formed the subject of Barbara McClintock’s research at Cornell that led to her Nobel prize in genetics. Both were among the dozen or so prize winners featured for their creativity in the dozen or so short videos that cycle in the amphitheaters.

The video clips were interesting in that they gave unusually candid insights into the lives and minds of several prize winners. However, in most cases these films would probably not inspire someone sitting on the career fence trying to decide whether to make a career in science. For example, an interview with Schroedinger revealed that the inspiration and equations that led to his famous wave equation were developed during a family vacation in Europe. When asked about this period of intense creativity, he indicated that he had to wear ear plugs because the talking and carrying on of his family had made it too difficult for him to concentrate on his work.

Nobel Peace Museum in Oslo, Norway

2007-10-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

While most people probably think of the Nobel Museum as being at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, there is another Nobel Museum in Oslo devoted to the 5th prize – the Nobel Peace Prize – for which winners are selected in Norway.

The museum uses a high-tech (and in some cases a normal-tech) combination of art, science, and technology to provide an inspired overview of the prize, its goals, some of the impacts that its winners have made, and a biography of the man who made it all possible with “The Famous Will.” Many of the stories are interesting, such as this sad vignette about Charlie Chaplin.

A temporary exhibit area near the entrance currently has a series of large screens with constantly changing vignettes that set a tone for the rest of the museum.

Upstairs, one room has an eerie exhibit consisting of a series of waist-high Plexiglas rods that glow bluish at their tips and display among them several dozen small screens with pictures of Nobel Peace Prize winners. When you approach a screen, it automatically brings up a short description of that person’s contribution to world peace.

A small, quiet room in one corner contains a large red (but otherwise blank) book on a stand. A sensor detects pages being turned, and a projector then projects on the blank pages the story of Alfred Nobel’s life. Like a touch screen, a circular cursor can be dragged to various items on each page, which then brings up additional details. It’s slick and works reasonably well. It’s a good example of an exhibit where technology can provide an additional level of interactivity, interest, and layered information; but if more than one person wants to use the exhibit at a time, it can be a frustrating experience for everyone.

Everything about this museum was focused on the mission, including the staff t-shirts, which say "Peace at Work" on the backs.

Another popular interactive exhibit consists of a wall with many screens and sliders that select vignettes and other information on Nobel Peace Prize winners. The screens overlap at times, and slowly cascading letters that form words sometimes seem more like gimmickry. But it’s hard not to be inspired by the stories of what prize winners have accomplished in their quest for making a difference in the world.

A Fred (Norwegian for "peace") Quilt created by hundreds of school children made a fitting end to the visit.

Universeum in Gothenburg, Sweden

2007-10-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Universeum, which opened in 2001, is located in a dramatic structure that received an architectural award for the best building design in Sweden since 1950. Conveniently located near a major public transit station, it is next door to a large amusement park and expects to host 500,000 visitors this year. This photo shows the watercourse along a sidewalk leading to the building in the background.

Universeum, like many European museums, is seeing record attendance in 2007, which it attributes in large part to the prolonged rainy weather.

Inside, the center has two major and very different parts. One part is devoted to biology and includes a stream-to-ocean environment and a large rain forest environment. On the other side of a huge glass wall are several floors of physical science exhibits.

To begin their journey through the biology section, visitors first take an inclined lift up 30 vertical meters to the top of a winding path that starts with the plants and aquatic fauna associated with a mountain stream environment in Sweden.

Long, waist-height, open-topped aquaria extend along the winding path and gradually transition to lower-elevations and a marine environment that transitions to a below-the-surface setting that includes a circular tunnel with sharks and other large fish. There is also a touch tank, shown here, where visitors can hold marine invertebrates when staff are present.

Galleries in this part of the building include terrestrial animals such as a popular exhibit called “Deadly Beauties,” with displays of colorful, but poisonous, snakes and other animals. These displays are beautifully designed and well maintained.

Visitors can then go through a large, multi-level rain forest environment that includes extensive displays of plants plus a few animals. Warm rain drips continuously in air with 100% relative humidity, and the effect is dramatic. These two areas are used extensively for school group visits, with generally involve a guided tour with extensive questions and answers between the staff and visiting students.

The transition to the physical sciences on the other side of the building is abrupt. Exhibits here are grouped in various thematic areas and include “Dig It!” (making music with computers in a series of stations in glass rooms, as shown in the photo).

“Brash, Bang, Boom” is an exhibition on automotive safety (sponsored by Volvo, of course, which is based in Gothenburg). In this exhibit, visitors learn that their speed in a 30 km/hr crash is equivalent to jumping from a height of 3.5 meters. They can experience this by climbing the stairs and jumping to the mat below. At 70 km/hr, it's like jumping from an 8-story building. A scale nearby weighs visitors in Kg and also shows the equivalent "mass" at 30, 50, and 70 km. This exhibition extends the mission of the science center in an interecting direction by combining the science with a public service. Every Thursday, police spend 2 hours at the exhibition talking with visitors about safety, and a workshop for teens uses an alcohol-related scenario to encourage critical thinking about the consequences of drinking and driving.

“Puls” is a popular series of physical challenges related to healthy hearts, although most visitors seem simply to enjoy the physical challenges more than the science. A weather center (under construction), a space flight and astronomy area, and several other single exhibits (included whisper dishes that reflect off a wall-mounted disk because there is no path within the exhibit area that is long enough align the two dishes axially.)

The building, as part of its design, incorporates a number of interesting sustainability-related features. One of them is a dual drainage system that separates toilet wastes into two streams and treats the liquid portion inside the building.

The center has recently received major funding to develop an exhibition on climate change. It is still early in the process, and the major thematic areas and individual exhibits are in the concept development stage. However, the core message will likely revolve around helping visitors to think critically about their personal actions and to make more-informed decisions about their individual and collective impacts on the global environment.

Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway

2007-10-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

The Natural History Museum is actually a collection of three museums in a beautiful park setting in the City of Oslo. The main museum buildings house traditional collections in botany, geology, and zoology.

The museums are non-interactive and are organized along traditional lines of classification. In the Geology museum, for example, the lower floor provides a large number of rock specimens in the areas of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary geology.

The upstairs floor is devoted to physical and chemical processes in geology, mineralogy, and paleontology, including a full-sized cast of the T-rex Stan (who is now believed to have been a female).

The zoology museum is a series of dioramas and specimens in cases, with a small area for changing exhibitions. The museum had just closed an exhibition they had developed on homosexuality in animals. This exhibition brought in a large number of visitors and will soon be going on tour internationally. Many of the diaramas, including this heron, are beautifully done.

A large part of the park-like campus is devoted to several botanical gardens, which have been well-designed, well-maintained, and are a joy to spend time in.

Collections ranged from a nicely laid out rose garden to an aromatic smell garden to a rock garden that was created from the bequest of a man who had lived near the park and had grown up walking through it as a child.

Of particular interest was the signage, which was relatively sparse but full of interesting stories and tidbits. At the ginkgo tree grove, for example, in addition to the usual information about being one of the oldest types of trees still in existence, visitors can learn that ginkgo leaves were chewed by monks because the leaves contain a substance that reduced their need to urinate during long religious ceremonies.

While the museum has recently organized several public forums on global warming, it has not considered developing any exhibitions on climate change, in large part because the geologists associated with the museum think in geologic time scales, have studied the variability of the global climate throughout geologic time, and are unconvinced that the current global warming has an anthropogenic origin.

National Museum of Science & Technology in Oslo, Norway

2007-10-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

Founded in 1914 and designated as the National Museum of Science and Technology in 1995, this museum, is dedicated primarily to the history of technology. It recently absorbed a small, independent, (and failing) science center in 2002, which it now operates it as a department. Another unit is a medical museum with permanent two exhibitions: one on the history of diseases from 1850 on and another on what it is like to be in a hospital, including a section for children and for the end of life.

The building is new. It also rents space to the Telecom Museum (which currently has a popular exhibition on the history and culture of ring tones.)

The exhibits in the science center area are robust. They are primarily Exploratorium favorites, sturdily built and all working, such as a Bernoulli Blower with target hoops.

Another major theme, of course, is oil. Exhibits in this area address the geology of oil and the technology of platforms, including what it’s like to work and live on a large deep-sea oil platform.

The main exhibit galleries are devoted primarily to energy and transportation. In the energy area, the museum has worked hard to bridge the two worlds of the science museum and the science center by showing some impressive and important examples of hardware from the Norwegian hydropower industry. Among these historical objects are interactive exhibits that demonstrate principles of electromagnetism and the generation of electricity. While most of these exhibits are close-ended, the museum is planning a major renovation that will change many of these.

The largest area of the museum is devoted to transportation. This section has traditional displays of cars, planes, motorcycles, bikes, etc.

A new and interesting program presents mini-exhibitions on current hot topics in science. These exhibitions may be on the order of 30 m2 (300 SF) and are designed for quick use in the lobby.

The current exhibit was called “Cyberstork” and raises questions about the ethics and technology associated with choosing a baby via the Internet.

The museum is currently developing a new exhibition on global warming that will open in early 2008, along with extensive programming for schools. This exhibition will include sections on the science of climate change as well as its impact on people throughout the world.

Teknikens Hus in Lulea, Sweden

2007-09-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

Teknikens Hus, voted the “Best Small Science Center” at the last Science Center World Congress, is a vibrant center that pays a lot of attention to its local industries and their technology.

Located on the campus of the University of Technology in Lulea, the center was conceived in 1979 by a woman who was responsible for recruiting new students. Her vision was to create a center that would show children about local industries and inspire them, particularly girls, to pursue degrees in engineering and other technical subjects at the local university.

The center has an exhibit design philosophy that is unusual, if not unique. The center’s goals are similar to most science centers and museums: to inspire interest and curiosity for science and technology. Its current director (who previously served as head of exhibits and has been with the center since before its construction) is an historian and a former theater set designer. Building on this background, the exhibits have an immersive quality that is rare, especially in a relatively small center (2,500 m2 or 25,000 SF of public space).

Once the topic for an exhibit has been selected, the three design priorities, in order, are: 1) using the real McCoy, such as a real airplane propeller that visitors can spin with a motor and adjust the pitch of the blades and feel the difference in the wind speed. Other examples include a real hydraulic log lifter that visitors can use to move around real logs (the cockpit of the machine is inside the building but the machine sticks out through the wall, and the mechanisms and logs are all outside.)

The second priority, when full size is not possible, is a working scale model, such as this papermaking machine that reproduces the main functions of a 100-m-long machine in a 10-m-long model. It uses 1.5 tonnes of pulp annually, and visitors can make a real piece of paper with it, from pulp to pressing and drying. As a nice touch at the end, Teknikens Hus provides a seal of the museum with which visitors can imprint their piece of paper. This photo shows the first of three sections of the machine, which altogether is about 10 m long.

Another example of this type of exhibit is a working, model-scale hydroelectric power plant.

The third option is a non-working model, such as a sawmill, which would be too dangerous, dusty, and noisy to do in the museum but which represents an important industry that Teknikens Hus wants to represent. All of these exhibits are sponsored by local industry, which believes that the center provides a useful opportunity for increased student awareness of technical careers. Here is the entrance to a blast furnace - another important local industry being steel, of which 250 different varieties are produced locally.

Teknikens Hus draws primarily from Lulea (70K residents) and a regional audience of 250K. Its 100K annual attendance is remarkable, and every school child in the region has had multiple experiences there by the time they have graduated from high school.

The center realizes that it must continually change its exhibits and programs to spark repeat visits and hosts 7-8 traveling exhibits annually using 2 spaces. Currently, its main temporary exhibition is called “Cold Poles, Hot Stuff”, which shows visitors what it is like to do research at the poles. This picture shows the view from the bow of an icebreaker, and small viewers on posts at the corners show video clips of wildlife that you might actually see in polar regions. As with all exhibits at Teknikens Hus, the design of the deck here uses the same materials, colors, and design as the real thing.

A small cold room lets visitors try to assemble metal parts with bulky gloves on. Puzzles let visitors put the right animals at the right pole (polar bears fit only at the North Pole, while penguins fit only at the South Pole). 2 large circular floor maps help visitors understand that the polar regions start at latitudes above 60 degrees (not just above the polar circles, and some pieces of real research hardware give visitors a sense of some of the types of research going on.

A web-based, real-time weather readout displays the current temperature (a chilling -39 deg C in one case), wind speed, and relative humidity at 2 research stations, one near each pole.

Other features of Teknikens Hus include science theater shows daily (a penguin meets a researcher, and the audience learns about the ways penguins are adapted to survive in Antarctica); a 20-seat planetarium featuring the northern lights as a backdrop, a café that serves as a mensa/cafeteria for the local university at lunchtime, and gift shop.

Teknikens Hus has a staff of 25, of which 1/3 are in the exhibits dept. This group, like several other museums, does a brisk business in exhibit manufacture and traveling exhibition rentals.

The center has several programs related to sustainability and creativity. In one program, school students work in groups to create a vision of the future, develop a project (model, PowerPoint presentation, theatrical production, exhibit) and the top entry from each of 6 science centers go annually to southern Sweden to present their vision to the other 5. Another program encourages students to invent a solution to a real problem, and entries are judged and winning entries displayed. School programs have been designed around current exhibitions, and one uses these ice core models to talk about the physics, chemistry, and biology of polar regions.

Sustainability is a theme that has appeared twice in Teknikens Hus’s traveling exhibitions. A previous exhibition, called “Grasping Climate,” is currently on display at the Nacka Natural School near Stockholm and will be described in a future post. Overall, the goals of the center are to make the public aware that climate change is happening and that everyone can do something about it. A key philosophical outlook is that even if a single individual’s action has a small effect, when adopted by everyone, the impact can be large and important.

Heureka in Vantaa, Finland

2007-09-26T14:46:00.001-07:00

Heureka, located just north of Helsinki, packs a lot of activity into a relatively small indoor space and uses its extensive outdoor area very effectively. The center is a short, enjoyable walk from the train/bus station through a wooded area and over an artistically designed cable-stayed footbridge over a river running through the city.

Inside, Heureka has features of museums much larger. It knows that it must change exhibits frequently to maintain repeat visitation and has a good mix of permanent exhibitions, new single exhibits, and touring shows, for which it has two galleries. Some of these temporary shows are designed internally and others rented from other museums; a new exhibition developed by Heureka on shipping was just being set up while an exhibition on Mexican anthropology was in the other gallery.

The indoor exhibits were a combination of mostly original designs plus modifications of favorites found in other museums and a few purchases and trades. The use and integration of technology were some of the best I have seen. For example, a new exhibition on smart transportation systems includes an Internet-based station with 3 screens where visitors can see all of the planes in the air over North America (some 4,000 planes by the afternoon), all of the ships in the Helsinki area, and all of the city buses in Helsinki. By moving a crosshair over any given vehicle with a trackball, visitors can see, for example, a plane’s destination, flight path, number, ground speed, and height. All of these data are actually available on the Internet, but the museum, in partnership with a local university, has developed a museum-friendly interface that works very well and lets visitors experience several aspects of current transportation technology seen normally only in movies.

As another example, a nearby station in this exhibition uses 4 ceiling-mounted cameras to track the movements of visitors in the exhibition. Again, using custom software, a screen toggles between showing the movement of individual visitors and which areas receive the most amount of visitor time – something many museums have spent significant resources to do by hand. This system does it in real time and demonstrates computer vision and recognition, another powerful element of intelligent traffic systems. The floor is a huge, printed satellite image of the region, and at selected points, monitors in the floor display real-time images of intersections, and LED displays show average traffic speed.

Other indoor highlights include several geodesic-domed amphitheater areas for science shows (including one in which rats play basketball), a domed theater (which is being converted to a digital planetarium from an older 870 film projection system), a large auditorium, gift shop, and the Einstein Café, a full-service lunch facility.

The outdoor science park is large at 8,000 m2 (2 acres) and has a number of original exhibits, such as a climb-in-able Klein Bottle, a thermometer that works by measuring the expansion of long copper pipes mounted on the side of the museum, and a wind machine that lets visitors experience the force of the wind blowing at 25 m/sec (shown here).

Various water exhibits range from a human treadmill-powered Archimedian Screw to a build-it-yourself arch bridge over a small streamlet.

Other outdoor exhibits include extensive plantings, a garden of flowers organized by numbers of petals from 1 to 12, the largest rock park I have ever seen, and even a “clock garden,” in which the flowers bloom according to the time of the day.

Heureka, like many other European museums I have visited in the past several months, has a strong interest in the environment and believes that it has an important role to play in helping its visitors become more aware of global warming and to become better decision makers without dictating which specific behaviors are “best.” A series of new permanent exhibits on recycling help visitors learn about the implications of choices they make in selecting and disposing of common products, for example.

Under development is a new school program in the form of a game that is linked to their transportation exhibition and will allow teams of students to travel (virtually) between cities to perform various tasks using wireless PDAs. Throughout the game, they will have to optimize conflicts such as travel time and CO2 emissions and will receive real-time feedback on their decisions.

In this and many of their other activities and exhibits, Heureka demonstrates a strong commitment to group or family learning. Exhibits for the most part have been designed and displayed to promote group interactions, and it was clear from watching visitors that they were engaged and learning from each other as well as from the exhibits. In this exhibit, teams of visitors team up to form a virtual fireman's blanket and catch falling items in a politically corrected version of the mid-80s computer game "Bouncing Babies."

Funding-wise, Heureka obtains slightly more than 50% of its US $9 million budget from the City of Vantaa and Ministry of Education. This is in keeping with many European museums, which typically rely on earned income sources for 1/3 to ½ of their annual operating budget.

One area where Heureka differs significantly from other European science centers and museums is their use of volunteers. Whereas volunteering at a museum is rare in Europe, Heureka has about 80 active volunteers, modeling their program after U.S. museums and finding that volunteering fits in with the culture in Finland.

La Cite de la Sciences et l’Industrie in Paris, France

2007-09-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

La Cite is a very large science center, which opened in 1986 on the site of a former slaughterhouse in northeastern Paris.

The project was part of a redevelopment effort to revitalize this part of the city and has by all indications been successful, as the overall venue welcomes 3 million visitors each year, including 1.5 million to the science center. Shown here is the large IMAX dome theater.

The scale of La Cite is grand. It mounts some 10-12 temporary exhibitions each year. 1,000 staff work with an annual budget of about $140 million. 25% of the building is still unused and available for other uses or expansion. Some ¾ of the budget is provided by the French government each year, and the rest is earned through admissions, food, gift shop, and IMAX income.

The majority of the exhibits are relatively non-interactive and target adults with a broad variety of topics such as energy, cars, astronautics, etc. There are relatively few pure science exhibits.

A current science area, which is managed by a staff of 20, changes to a new theme each quarter. The current topic is Africa, and a wide range of information panels, interactive computer stations, artwork, and other objects invites visitors to learn more about development in this region of the world. At one end of the area is a large round black granite table with computer stations where visitors can dig into several areas of current science and vote their opinions.

A major area for children is currently being renovated. Once completed, it will be 5,000 m2 (50,000 sq ft) and will include two areas; one for 2-5 year olds and one for 5-11 year olds (La Cite finds that after age 11, relatively few children come to the science center or use hands-on exhibits). The exhibits in both areas have been created with developmental psychology in mind and are interesting from a pedagogical viewpoint.
In the younger area, the exhibits are very colorful, simple, and attractive for young children, with a hollowed out tree, a kangaroo with a pouch that small children can crawl into, and some excellent water play.

My favorite part of this area, however, was a construction zone in which children can build structures with weighted foam blocks, using a large crane, trains, and various building elements. Optional hardhats and construction jackets are provided, and most children enjoy dressing the part. A wonderful side benefit of this construction area is that children who have never met each other must learn to work as a team in order to accomplish anything.

In the area designed for older children, exhibits run a broad gamut of topics from a mini-butterfly house to biochemistry and robotics. Exhibits are designed as props for adults to facilitate learning of the children with them. Signage is not encyclopedic, but rather supportive of adults. It works well, and it is easy to see why La Cite is a favorite destination for children and families.

A number of the exhibits in this area were based on the theme of communication. A small, immersive area included messages and examples of food from other cultures. There were opportunities to try writing messages in other languages.

In a fun variation on the pneumatic message-tube exhibit, the air pressure needed to send the message to the other end station is generated by visitors sitting on the round red seat near the exhibit.

La Cite has made a major commitment, as an institution, to sustainability and helping the public understand issues related to climate change. A major exhibition about 4 years ago called “Climax” provided an immersive experience intended to jolt visitors into thinking about the potential impacts of global warming. The exhibition opened one month after the heat wave that killed 35,000 Europeans and had Parisian morgues overflowing.

Members of the museum staff indicate that public understanding of global warming in France has reached the point where this earlier exhibition would no longer be considered current science; i.e., people in France have moved beyond needing to be convinced of global warming and its human causes and now are more interested in what to do about it.

A more recent exhibition, which just closed last month, was called “A New Era” and treated a number of issues related to future climate change scenarios, as well as what we can do to leave a smaller carbon footprint while maintaining a quality of life similar to that which we now enjoy.

As an institution, La Cite has committed itself to engaging the public in conversations about sustainability and climate change. The center realizes that it can’t do this without “walking the talk” itself, and it is now looking at many aspects of its operations, from lighting, insulation, and building energy usage, to the messages it shares with the public through its exhibitions and programs. It now has a fulltime sustainability coordinator, whose goal is to work with all departments to align their operations with sustainable practices such as recycling, energy conservation, etc. La Cite also plans to include sustainability as a constant element in all of its future exhibitions, much as it now includes universal design.

Palais de la decouverte in Paris, France

2007-09-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Eden Project in Cornwall, England

2007-09-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Several friends and colleagues recommended a visit to the Eden Project, not so much as a traditional science center, but as a place where science is all around and just waiting to be discovered. It was well worth the effort (which included renting a car and taking a self-taught crash course in driving on the left side of the road).

Eden is a product of the Millennium Commission, which financed the project as a way to bring more people into a region that had become depressed following the closing of most of the mines in the 1960s and 70s. It is constructed in an old pit from which China clay was mined. The facility might be described as a botanical garden with a strong message of sustainable development woven throughout its exhibits, which include thousands of species of plants and numerous exhibits on our use of plants It has two biomes (see photo). The left one, which is the largest conservatory in the world, houses tropical plants, while the right one houses plants found in Mediterranean and Californian regions.

The displays are thought-provoking, with many opportunities to see frequently used plants we rarely see - how often do we get the chance to see coffee, sugar, tea, rice, cotton, or hemp (shown here) plants growing? - as well as learn more about the people who grow them.

Other indoor displays in a building called “The Core” include curio-type cabinets with figures and messages to think about; a wall of refrigerator doors to write magnetic poetry on; a tree of cycles, with disks depicting the water, carbon, nitrogen, and other cycles.

Many of these displays have messages that provide information and/or thought-provoking questions but (purposefully) stop short of advocating what to do. The educational philosophy of Eden is to inspire people to think on their own, given information and questions.

This was one of the many specialty gardens at Eden and my personal favorite. In this case, staff surveyed a number of people to see what they would like to have and then went ahead and built it.

In the center of The Core is a seed, carved from a single block of granite, which serves as a reminder of Eden's message about sustainability for living things. It looks much like a pine cone and weighs in at 70 tons. The Queen dedicated it.

A few other exhibits have been added to appeal to teens, including a dance mat (with an ecological theme), a shooting gallery (in which species lost cause other changes in the food chain) and a series of old cars in which Elvis takes riders through a virtual tour around the world in search of the right ingredients a pizza: at the end, visitors find that the ingredients have traveled some 24,000 km to get to their table.

One popular activity for young visitors is a treasure hunt called the cake challenge. Visitors must find all the ingredients for a cake somewhere at Eden and then they receive an actual baked cake. In the process, they reach many different parts of Eden and learn more about the diversity of plants needed even to make something as common as a cake.

Things are big, bold, spectacular, colorful, and decidedly on-message. Food service, for example, (which is everywhere - 9 different eating venues), promotes messages of nutrition, local sourcing, and minimal packaging. Even the tables at Eden all have a message. Everyone on the staff we met really walked the talk and seemed decidedly committed to the mission. One of the head curators was out on the floor in jeans on Sunday as an explainer, talking with visitors about the next big project: a desert biome called "The Edge."

The core message is clear - Eden hopes its 1.2 million visitors will increase their appreciation for the interconnectedness of everything and grow more curious about (and question) the impact of our activities on the world, its ecosystems, and its people. Everything here supports the message, even the hand driers in the restrooms. The device shown here really works - drawing your hands slowly out for only 5 seconds leaves your hands totally dry, with no paper.

The response has been remarkably positive. Eden appears to be one of the few financially successful edutainment venues that relies almost entirely on earned income, and yet it has resources for doing everything according to the highest standards of sustainability, exceptional maintenance, and investment in new facilities. At the same time, it is sponsoring more than a dozen major outreach projects in developing countries throughout the world. Described here are only 2 of the many.

Techniquest in Cardiff, Wales

2007-09-20T02:43:00.000-07:00

Techniquest, a science center located in Wales and just an hour west of Bristol (see last post), was the first re-development project in a relatively abandoned and seedy waterfront area in what at one time was the busiest port in the world (due to shipments of coal, which was mined nearby and shipped internationally from Cardiff).

The adjacent area has become decidedly posh, with new restaurants and clubs and plenty of shopping for tourists. The seat of the Welsh government is only 500 m distant.

In designing its building, Techniquest took the footprint and structural steel frame of an abandoned shipyard facility. One long wall to the south is glass, which gives the exhibits natural lighting and a visitor-friendly atmosphere.

The exhibits are highly interactive and are developed and built in-house, with bright colors and a style that is unlike most other museums. Although the exhibit cases look as if they are made of plastic, they are for the most part wood, built up in layers of plywood and mostly shaped by a computer-driven router. Techniquest has almost a dozen exhibit staff, and most are employed in building exhibits for other museums around the world in addition to their own projects.

Some of the exhibits are clever modifications of old favorites. For example, this Hand Battery exhibit is very user-friendly and includes 8 different metals (in comparison with the usual 3). But in spite of this potential complexity, the physical design makes it easy to see what to do and visitors quickly get it.

The center places a high value on personal contact with visitors thru science shows and has 3 presentation venues: 1) a 100-seat amphitheater, 2) a 25-seat planetarium, and 3) a flexible lab/project room shown here. The amphitheater is used for 3-4 shows per day on the weekends, while the planetarium runs 7-8 shows daily. Although there are now almost 30 different planetarium shows (all written in-house), all end with a brief display of the night sky of that day, so that visitors can go home and look for certain constellations or other astronomical objects if the skies are clear. The lab is also well used and can be set up for chemical extractions, physics, or a number of other activities for school or family groups.

The center believes that it should be reaching every person in Wales and has aggressively set up satellites in other corners of the country to serve as hubs for outreach. They currently estimate that they provide an average of about 10 minutes of science experience per person per year in the country and plan to build this over time towards at least an hour. This exhibition on music is an effort to reach new audiences and has been relatively successful in bringing in more teens to Techniquest.

Techniquest has begun a major new initiative related to the science of sustainability and climate change. Following David Attenborough’s recent lead, the center has made it a top priority and is working toward the day when one-quarter of its exhibits and programming are related to sustainability.

During the past summer, climate change was the theme for much of their programming and they created a series of temporary exhibits and activities to help visitors become more aware of the issue, including a huge outdoor world map with a facilitated activity on how far your food travels. The energy related to globally vs. locally sourced food is a common theme in European science centers; one used frequently among centers working on visitor awareness of climate change. The exhibit has now been largely dismantled, but this kiosk and a few other exhibits remain; here you can see a fully sealed biological system which has been operating without anything but light and heat for several years. It is used primarily as a prop for explainers in talking with visitors about the interconnections in an ecosystem.

Perhaps most importantly, the director and staff of the center have made a strong commitment to global warming as a critical issue facing the world of the future and one around which they plan to commit significant programmatic resources. The next phase is a proposal to a major foundation to develop a series of permanent outdoor exhibits and related programming on the topic of climate change.

Explore @ Bristol in Bristol, England

2007-09-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

This science center, generally referred to as simply "At-Bristol," was funded primarily by the Millennium Commission and opened in its current form in 2000. It is located in a former rail transfer warehouse at the waterfront in Bristol. The building is one of the world’s early reinforced concrete structures and is on the historic buildings list (and is therefore difficult to modify structurally).

Originally, there were two additional venues: an IMAX theater and an outdoor environmental venue “Wild Walk,” both of which closed in April of this year because they were not financially viable.

The center has a unique series of exhibits that are for the most part unlike those of most other science centers. The exhibits are grouped into several themes that include the human body, structures, Exploratorium-type physics, optics, and perceptions exhibits, and a few others. It seemed initially as if 30 minutes might suffice for the first floor, but two and a half hours later, it was time for lunch and there was still a lot more to see and do.

The human body exhibits were particularly interesting in that they provided interesting challenges that involved the senses and in some cases took data that could be used by researchers for further study. In one exhibit, for example, visitors watch a video clip that involves a crime and are then challenged to recall various details, ranging from the color of a woman’s hair involved in the story (blonde) to what a running man had in his hand (a cell phone). At the end, visitors see a line-up and are asked to pick the right person. Many of the individuals look very similar, and the exercise immediately made very real the uncertainties associated with police line-ups.

A feature of most of these health-related exhibits was that they provided useful and interesting information on portions of the body without being overly wordy or didactic. One possible exception was a series of exhibits on the brain, which are planned for replacement as soon as funding is lined up.

The center has an area in the corner of the first floor devoted to birth and targeting youth. Museum staff report that this area is of great interest to teens because much of the information in the exhibits here is not readily available elsewhere. Where else can one stand in a squishy, pulsating womb and watch a birthing video, replete with the screams of labor?

Another area on this floor featured exhibits on water engineering and structures, including some excellent opportunities for water play.

The now-closed Wild Walk venue had a number of exhibits related to climate change and global warming. Some of these exhibits, now in storage, will be brought into the science center in the future to help visitors become more aware of trends in the climate and to encourage them to become more curious about the science of climate change. These exhibits ranged from very simple (magnetic poetry on real refrigerator doors) to a computer simulation of world environmental policy in which visitors took the role as decision maker and were able to experience the interconnectedness of the systems that make up our world.

At-Bristol provides regular museum floor programs for visitors. I watched a cart science program in which visitors try to built a boat of tin foil that will hold the largest number of marbles. This type of cart-based floor program is not as common in European museums as in U.S. museums. Programs such as these are wonderful in they engage people of all ages and backgrounds, from 4-year-olds to engineers with PhDs. In this case, the 4-year-old scored more marbles than the engineer...

Some of the exhibits here appear to be Exploratorium knock-offs. In several cases, however, these exhibits, including "Cafe Wall," were actually developed at Bristol by Professor Richard Gregory. In this case, Prof. Gregory noticed this pattern and the optical effect while at a small cafe in Bristol and turned it into the now-famous exhibit that we all have somewhere in our museums and centers.

The center also houses the only one of 8 national teacher training institutes that is located in a science center, and the center places a high priority on teacher education as part of its mission.

Financially, At-Bristol has an interesting financial model. Located in the heart of a newly revitalized waterfront district that was once very rundown, the area is now full of restaurants and nightclubs. The center was given overall management of the local parking garage as well as some of the adjacent real estate, so it receives income from parking at the waterfront as well as a portion of the rent paid by adjacent businesses through sub-leases it offers to them.

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Natural History Museum in London, UK

2007-09-15T01:01:00.000-07:00

The Natural History Museum is housed in a nineteenth-century building that could probably double as a cathedral. Its interior has beautiful arched passageways and a vaulted main gallery with spectacularly decorated ceilings.

The museum itself is a study in contrasts: in some places the old, churchlike environment has been hidden by ultra-modern, high-tech neon-adorned façades, passageways, and galleries.

For example, the museum’s new ecology area seemed oddly out of place, with ultra-modern lighting and harsh, almost disco-like design elements that seemed out of character with the exhibition’s environmental theme and seemed more in keeping with the Hard Rock Café not far away.

I was particularly interested in how the museum approached the topic of the environment and climate change, and I’ll limit most of my comments to that topic. I found it in three different areas of the museum:

1) “From the Beginning” gallery: In this permanent gallery, climate change was presented as due to natural cycles, represented by an exhibit with a large pendulum swinging back and forth between areas labeled “greenhouse climate” and “icehouse climate”. The time scale taken by the exhibition is geologic and indicates that the cause of these cycles is CO2 put into the atmosphere by volcanoes. At the end, the short-term issue of CO2 was addressed with one sign, stating that atmospheric CO2 has tripled in the past 200 years, that if this continues, areas of the earth will be come deserts and rising sea level will flood many low-lying parts of the world. The final statement: “Greenhouse gases may have devastating effect on climate. But we are due to enter another glacial phase in the next few thousand years, so natural and human-induced climate changes may cancel each other out, for a while at least.”

2) “Earth Today and Tomorrow” gallery. This permanent gallery covered a wide range of earth-science topics, such as mining, geology, and energy. The Energy section covered carbon-based resources such as oil, gas, and coal and showed several alternative sources such as solar, geothermal, wave and wind energy. The exhibition makes the point that carbon-based fuels are putting huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and that this appears to be causing climate changes. According to the exhibition, scientists are studying these changes with computer models and other techniques, and visitors are left with questions about the wisdom of continuing our build-up of atmospheric CO2.

3) “Ice Station Antarctica: Recruits Needed” This temporary exhibition on life in a polar research station was prepared by the Natural History Museum in cooperation with the British Antarctic Survey as part of International Polar Year 2007-8. The scientific content and many of the objects for this exhibition were provided by the Survey, while the museum developed the story line and physical exhibits. The exhibition targets the curiosity children with the line: “Do you have what it takes to be an Antarctic researcher?” and begins the experience with a 45-second immersion in a -10-deg (C) cold room.

Visitors have bar-coded tickets, which link them with various exhibits and provide continued contact and activities at home via the exhibition website. The exhibition showed visitors many aspects of polar research, from clothing antarctic researches need to sampling water, riding a snowmobile, eating, first aid, and even sampling penguin droppings. The environment was immersive, with inflatable igloos and plywood shacks, plus many of the trappings of polar research. A particular strength of the exhibition was the frequent use of stories of real researchers.

At the end of the exhibition, visitors had a fairly good idea of what life is like for researchers in Antarctica, and I almost felt as if I knew some of the people there because of the personal stories they provided to visitors. There was relatively little information about climate change (which has been magnified at the poles compared with temperate regions), except a few statements that the temperature is rising, and that it will threaten the existence of some animals adapted to the cold climate in Antarctica.

At the main entrance was a large desk with 2 staff and 6 sets of red backpacks, each filled with family-friendly activities related to specific galleries. These backpacks are well-used and obviously well-loved (about 30 uses per day, or 10,000 uses in the museum per year). Each backpack contains simple matching, discovery, or art-related educational activities, with concise instructions and support for adult caregivers in helping children. Backpacks are becoming more common in museums as a way to engage younger children with objects in the galleries, and the concept appears to have been implemented successfully at the Natural History Museum.

Science Museum in London, UK

2007-09-11T01:39:00.000-07:00

Visiting the Science Museum in London was something of a pilgrimage. It is one of the largest science museums in the world and also one of the most innovative. It is also a museum of remarkable contrasts that constantly invite visitors to ask questions about science, technology, and the world around us.

For starters, the exterior of the building is fairly traditional and in the style of an old city museum. There is little from the outside to spark the enthusiasm of a curious child. But once inside, the museum opens up to a tall, naturally lighted atrium that invites exploration.

The first exhibits that greet visitors are huge old steam engines of various types. Some are quite old, but they are presented in an open form that invites browsing, with colorful labels that tell an interesting story about each one, setting them in a context where visitors can get excited about the past.

The museum houses some astounding collections that, for an aficionado, can easily raise the heart rate a few points. Examples include the original detector used by Marconi to receive the first transatlantic wireless spark signal in 1901 and the telephone used by Alexander Graham Bell to call the Queen in 1868 to persuade her that the phone was the wave of the future. The Apollo 10 command module is there (this was the flight prior to the first moon landing) as well as

Stephenson’s Rocket – the steam locomotive that achieved a world record speed of 29 mph in 1829, convincing investors that steam locomotives were a better bet than cable-drawn rail systems.

But, in my mind, what is most remarkable about the Science Museum is their commitment to getting people to think critically. Many science museum supporters would like to think they are promoting it, and many science museum directors and staff would jump at the chance to do more of it. Here are some examples of how critical thinking is being encouraged.

1. Antenna Science News. This program brings current science to the public in several ways. A) A new informational feature story is posted every 6 months on a large 4-sided kiosk (current story is about the new collider being built at CERN in Switzerland). B) a pair of smaller kiosks present a controversial topic and invite visitors to learn more, compare their response with those of others, and to enter comments to be read by others (a new feature is posted every 1-2 weeks). C) a website provides a portal to all previous topics and currently is responsible for 25% of all hits to the museum’s web site.

2. Energy Area. In contrast with most museum energy areas, this exhibition does not go into different forms of energy, kinetic and potential energy, source of energy, or other basic scientific concepts such as converting mechanical into electrical energy. Instead, this area focuses on energy choices. In one computer challenge, for example, you are the country’s energy czar and must choose the type and location of power plants to keep up with increasing demand. Given a palette of types (coal, gas, solar, wind, etc.) you plunk down your choice and receive instant feedback from your boss (e.g., that photovoltaic power plant you installed has caused a major stink because of the land area that had to be taken out of agriculture). This area was constzntly in busy and I observed thqt visitors were really engaged with making choices about energy.

3. Issues and Ethics. Another area features several large round tables, each with 8 stations where visitors can interact with a push button and wheel (very iPod-like). A projector from above permits visitors to select an issue ("Should we be able to choose the sex of our children?") and then provides a 10-15 minutes interactive experience where visitors answer questions, receive information, and respond to challenges. Families, single adults, tourists, and teens step up to a station and quickly find themselves engaged into substantive discussions about difficult topics with total strangers who may come from a very different demographic.

An interesting (and very red) exhibition on plastics takes visitor thru a wide variety of types and uses of plastics, including printable plastics, such as are currently being researched at Cornell University.

There’s more: evening science cafes, live science shows, school-based programs. But the thread that runs through much of this is the attempt to encourage visitors to articulate their own views and continue to inquire after the visit.

Siemens Forum in Munich, Germany

2007-09-06T13:56:00.000-07:00

The Siemens Forum is a showcase for Siemens technology. It includes the history of electrical, electronics, medical, and communications developments since the company’s founding in Berlin in 1847 by Werner von Siemens. The museum is free and targets corporate visitors and business partners, potential recruits, as well as the public. As described in a gallery devoted to the company’s leadership, Siemens places a high value on loyalty and long-term thinking and has had only 10 CEOs in the 160 years since its founding.

From its earliest days, the company has focused on innovation and bringing great ideas to market. The main exhibit hall provides a display of representative products ranging from a generator that powered the first lights in Berlin to the first implantable pacemaker (1958 - see photo) to cell phones, computers, telephones, consumer electronics, and appliances. There is also a model of the first electric rail car, developed by Siemens in 1879. The one drawback of this gallery is its dreamy but annoying sound track that repeats every few seconds.

Siemens, like many corporations in Europe and elsewhere, is clearly seeing green technology as good corporate public relations. Many displays promote the ways in which Siemens has worked to increase efficiency or reduce energy requirements for its products and thereby reduce both the cost of energy as well as the load of CO2 on the environment.

The energy area clearly states that CO2 in the environment will be the primary limit to the growth of energy, as the world advances toward 8 billion people in 2030.

One lesson to be (re)learned from this museum is the difficulty of maintaining a display of cutting edge technology. One conspicuous display near the cafeteria, for example, highlights the latest developments of Siemens technology, with various devices spotlighted on pedestals in a well-lit cabinet. The notebook computer in this display boasts a “6 GB hard drive and up to 192 MB of RAM.” In comparison, the laptop I’m currently using has 120 GB of hard drive and 1024 MB of RAM (and is by no means high-end).

The entry lobby featured a special exhibition called “Megatrends in China” that depicts the ways Siemens has assisted with the development of Shanghai. This display is particularly engaging, with many large panoramic photos, as well as stories of how new products are being used and how they are changing the way people do things in China.

A new Siemens-developed mag-lev train installed in 2004, for example, whisks people 33 km to the Pudong airport from Shangai in 8 minutes at 430 kph – the currently fastest non-plane vehicle on earth.

To help tell the story of China and set a context for the introduction of new technology in Shanghai, a half-dozen displays sprinkled around the exhibition area show cultural objects from Chinese life and explain their significance. I found these displays interesting and highly readable.

I suspect that many visitors to science museums might find historical objects more interesting if we were to adopt an approach that, like these labels, minimizes text, eliminates information few visitors need (such as inventory numbers and other purely descriptive details), and instead focuses on the object’s relevance to a typical visitor.

Aviation Museum in Oberschleissheim, Germany

2007-09-01T15:16:00.001-07:00

This relatively new museum – a branch of the Deutsches Museum – opened 15 years ago in 1992 and houses dozens of aircraft in a series of large halls. The site itself has a fascinating history: it is located only a few hundred meters from a set of 3 palaces with formal gardens inspired by those at Versailles. But more interestingly, the site was in many ways the center of German aviation from its beginning through the 1970s.

The airstrip was a hub for early commercial aviation in central Europe (see the poster left, showing the expansion of routes between 1919 and 1931), and during both world wars, key activities took place here. Following WW II, the U.S. used the base for several decades, and it was the only American aviation school off U.S. soil until its closing in the mid-1970s. The noise became an ever-bigger problem for the increasingly urban population, and at this point, the airfield is used only occasionally.

Many interesting aircraft are on display, from models of earlier human-powered kite-like devices to gliders, military aircraft, helicopters, and small commercial planes. Visitors can see various engines from throughout aviation history, and there is even a complete, pre-transistor Link flight simulator made in Binghamton, New York (see photo right).

One interactive exhibit lets visitors experience the jet effect by sitting on a swiveling seat and pedal a large fan; the reaction of the wind from the fan spins the pedaler, as in the photo.

For me, the most interesting parts of this museum were the stories about the significance of the site and the objects on display. Several wall panels told about the entire history of the Oberschleissheim site, including early aviation experiments, the commercialization of flight in Germany, and how the airfield became a magnet for American bombing raids in WW II. One photo shows the entire site looking like a chunk of Swiss cheese (see photo left) because of the high density of bomb craters. The airstrip is at the bottom of the photo and the palaces, fountains, and gardens are at the top).

Jewish laborers from the concentration camp in nearby Dachau were forced to fill in the holes and make the airfield operational again after each Allied bombing. All of the signage in the museum was in both German and English.

My one wish would be for reader-friendlier labels, with larger typesize and perhaps an occasional splash of color. All in all, however, there are many fascinating stories experienced within this collection, plus some additional ones that are just waiting to be told.

National Museum of Science and Technology ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ in Milan, Italy

2007-08-29T04:50:00.001-07:00

Having helped to develop the Sciencenter in Ithaca, NY by incorporating the buildings of a former wastewater treatment plant, I can appreciate the challenges of this museum in Milan, which is housed in a former 16th century monastery. Many of the galleries consist of long, narrow spaces, with masonry walls that can not be moved both for practical, as well as historical, reasons.

The building, as old as it is, is actually new construction, having itself been built on the site of an earlier 4th century walled area and church. Its interior courtyards are crossed by historic foundations (which also can’t be disturbed).

The museum was started in 1953 to foster democratic knowledge and to circulate scientific and technological culture. Visitors are greeted at the entrance to the exhibit area, for example, by this 184-kW steam-powered generator that powered 1,800 looms in a silk factory from 1895 to 1954. This is a huge, impressive machine, with a 5-m-diameter flywheel. But it is literally stuffed into the space it occupies, and visitors must view it in sections through openings in the walls on 3 sides.

The museum is undergoing a gradual transformation to bring its science and technology collections into closer connection with the interests of its visitors. In contrast with Technorama (previous blog entry), which changed its name and simply removed its historical, non-interactive collections, this museum plans to keep its collections and use them for accomplishing its dual goals of: 1) connecting its visitors with their scientific and technological heritage while 2) inspiring them for the future.

To help accomplish this second task, the museum has set up 16 interactive laboratories (i.Labs), each with its own space, where school groups or visitors can sign up for hour-long programs. I sat in on a robotics lab, where 4 boys (ages 8-10) and parents sat with an explainer, learning the basics of robotics through a pre-built Lego Mindstorm unit. The explainer was captivating and held the boys’ attention for a full 30 minutes of discussion before starting to add sensors and program the device on his laptop based on the requests of the particpants.

i.Lab topics include energy, ceramics, copperworking, genetics, and many others. These hands-on experiences give visitors the opportunity to taste many different subjects. What is particularly interesting is that the explainers who teach these sessions use an inquiry approach, often starting by asking visitors what questions they have about the topic and then building a custom program around those questions. This means that explainers must be well-trained because they must respond to a wide variety of questions to avoid delivering a scripted demonstration or activity.

These i.Lab sessions are sprinkled periodically throughout the day, and all are not offered each day. Each i.Lab has its own space, however, so that materials and equipment can be left available for next time.

The museum has also mounted an exhibition of many varied items from its collections with the stories of how they were used by people. This photo shows a plow, and other objects range from an early sewing machine to an early car to a beautifully tooled cash register made by National Cash Register.

There are other wonderful stories that this museum can tell about its collections and some are being told. For example, in one basement room, a nail-making machine here has a label that tells about how a beginning blacksmith would take 2 minutes to make a nail, while a highly experienced blacksmith could make 2-3 in the same amount of time. The machine here changed the face of both blacksmithing and construction forever, however, by making uniform nails at a rate of 250 per minute. Unfortunately, these types of stories are relatively rare, and many of the objects have no labels. In a number of other cases, the low or glaring lighting makes it difficult to read labels that are present. There is a huge potential to bring some amazing objects to life for visitors.

The museum places considerable emphasis on Leonardo da Vinci, who is officially part of the museum’s name. One long exhibition space has many models of Leonardo’s machines, ranging from a pile driver to a helicopter to a printing press to various war machines. I particularly liked the model of a double catapult (see photo) which, according to Leonardo’s plan, was to have been built with bows measuring 50 meters in length (!) and would be capable of hurling 20 kg stones great distances. There is an i.Lab for visitors to experiment with copies of several da Vinci machines, as well.

In addition to the main building, there are three additional exhibition venues.

1) a building devoted to rail transport, with a number of locomotives on display;

2) a building with maritime and air transport exhibits, including a full-sized square-rigged ship and an Italian 2-man torpedo (see photo for a look at this ride-‘em-cowboy device)…

3) #506 – a post-WW-II submarine that was decommission- ed in 2000 and brought to the museum with great community interest in August 2005. Curiously, it was dedicated at the museum on December 7th of that year, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, the sub also doubles as a full-size exhibit on albedo. Because it sits outside and is black, the sub gets too hot on sunny days for visitors to go inside.

From an educational standpoint, the education staff is working hard to make the collections more intellectually relevant and accessible. In particular, the staff has been at the forefront of transnational collaborations to improve the educational impact of school visits to museums. A major European Union research project, known as SMEC, has produced valuable publications, exemplars of museum programs for visiting school groups, and general experiences that all museums can gain from.

The staff runs literally into a wall at every turn, because of the challenging long and narrow spaces that this masonry monastery building provides. and there are still many holdover objects, such as many religious frescoes that have been removed from their original location, preserved, and displayed in the museum. From the standpoint of curb-appeal, the entrance to the museum is almost invisible because it is small and set back in a side wall of a broad courtyard off a side street. Visitors have virtually no convenient parking These characteristics probably contribute to the annual visitation rate per square meter of exhibit space that is about 20% that of many interactive science centers. However, recent changes have significantly increased attendance in recent years, and the success of the i.Lab program is certainly worth watching as a model for deeper engagement of youth at museums in general.

Technorama in Wintertur, Switzerland

2007-08-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

Technorama is the result of the re-invention of an historical technology museum into a vibrant science center in Winterthur, Switzerland. It is the only science center in the country, but with 500 hands-on exhibits, there is plenty of opportunity to go around.
The process started in 1991 with the replacement of a group of historical objects with a set of phenomenon-based hands-on exhibits. At the end of the venue, the museum kept the most successful exhibits as permanent. They repeated this process over the years and have now replaced all of the original historical objects (which are still safe in storage)

I was particularly impressed with the robustness of the exhibits. Of exhibits on display, I noticed only one that was out of order. About one-half of the exhibits have Exploratorium origins, but many have been re-engineered over the years. As a result, they are the best-functioning exhibits I have seen in 40 years of visiting science museums.

Technorama has regular floor programs that range from big and impressive (a show on gases that includes a number of big, impressive explosions and a great high-voltage show) to moderate-sized (a Coriolis-effect show delights about 50 visitors at a time, 20 of whom sit inside a spinning carousel and can roll balls to each other and do half a dozen other guided activities that bring the Coriolis effect to life. A scanning tunneling microscope demo produced a 3D atom-by-atom map of the surface of a graphite (carbon) crystal and brought nanotechnology to life.

Another demonstration showed visitors how increased atmospheric CO2 enhances the greenhouse effect by decreasing the amount of infrared radiation (heat) emitted back to space.

Technorama has an interesting area called the Youth Laboratory, which houses exhibits that in general take slightly more time. Many involve measurements or experimentation with parameters or sometimes more dangerous activities (such as heating compost with a flame to determine the residual mass). In this area, school groups can reserve the lab in the morning, and general visitors are free to use the space in the afternoon. The lab also includes a kitchen lab and a chemistry lab staffed by a full-time PhD in chemistry.

This year’s special exhibition is called ‘Atomic Zoo” and will be on display through summer 2008. It includes 29 stations where visitors can experiment with real equipment and direct observation of atomic=scale phenomena.

There is a small outdoor science park which presents many opportunities for the future. Currently the park has a Boyo human yoyo, a set of coupled swings, a 5-ton rock on a swivel, and a wonderful chalet for children’s activities.

It was particularly interesting to see the distribution of visitor ages at Technorama. In comparison with the usual bimodal distribution of ages groups in many science centers (pre-teen children and their parents), there was a significantly higher percentage of teens (often on a date) and older adults (often by themselves). There were few very young children (Technorama doesn’t charge for children under 6), but instead I noticed a relatively uniform distribution of ages, with significantly more teens than one sees in most museums of this type.

Interestingly, there is little outreach from Technorama. Everything is done onsite. To date, there has been strong on-site operating support from the Swiss government, but little funding for educational outreach.

From the standpoint of educational philosophy, Technorama has strict guidelines regarding what it will put on the museum floor. First, it seeks exhibits that are purely phenomenological. Inspired by both the Exploratorium and its artists, and to to some extent by the Science Museum of Minnosota, this museum is really hands-on and proud of it.

If Technorama can’t create a real hands-on visitor experience with a phenomenon, they won’t build the exhibit. You won’t find any ball-and-stick models of molecules, touch boxes, push buttons that light up text, flip-up panels, or other types of gratuitous interactivity. In fact, there are almost no computers except where they are used for measuring/displaying a quantity. Just real phenomena.

As a result, as much as Technorama would like to develop exhibits on nanotechnology, they are playing a wait-and-see approach because of the difficulty they see in bringing real phenomena at the nanoscale to visitors without models, information panels, computer screens, or other information transfer techniques that do not present visitors with real experiences at the nanoscale. They are following NSF’s Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) Network project very closely, along with efforts by other museums to address nanoscale science interactively.

German Emigration Center in Bremerhaven, Germany

2007-08-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Arnim, my close friend of nearly 30 years, was born in Bremerhaven and emigrated to the U.S. as a graduate student. He encouraged me to check this museum out, and it was definitely worth the effort. Again, this museum is not a science museum or center, but there are some wonderful features that might give those of us in the science center field some ideas.

The museum tells the story of how millions of Germans shipped out from Bremerhaven in search of a new life, often in America. What is particularly noteworthy, in my opinion, is the remarkable immersive environment this museum creates through a series of relatively simple, multi-sensory techniques. And then there are the stories.

To begin with, visitors receive a ticket with the name of someone. While other exhibitions (e.g., “Titanic”) use this technique to increase visitor interest, this museum provides you with an electronic card. Your card links you to your character at many different stations throughout the museum, allowing you to easily hear or read the stories connected with embarking, eating, sleeping, and just plain surviving the transatlantic trip. You can, of course, hear the stories of other people, but this technology allows you to easily follow your character’s experiences.

To begin with, after a short orientation, visitors go to a wharf to get the experience of how emigrants left home for a new life, along with the sounds, sights, and smells of the real thing. This experience is followed by walking up a gangway into the “ship” and from here on, it is as if visitors were really on board a ship bound for America. Stories are cleverly told through audio labels or on text panels that often are located behind paneled cupboard doors, for those who want to read. While opening doors to read text may seem boring, it works here, because every door has a story behind it.

The stories of 20 people living in a tiny bunk room in steerage are brought alive by representative vignettes about sleeping, sea-sickness, giving birth on board, and a typical diet – all done with restraint in the face of what must have been thousands of potential stories worth telling.

The simulated waiting and questioning rooms on Ellis Island, New York (photo left) left an impression on me. Visitors are challenged to answer the same battery of questions that examiners used 100 years ago to quickly determine the next step for immigrants - whether they would be accepted into the country and if so, what they could then do. Even in English, this was not a simple task, but the exhibition encourages visitors to imagine going thru this triage in a foreign language. All the while, a bell was ringing every few seconds to indicate the processing of yet another new immigrant by some anonymous examiner within the facility. One wrong answer could make the transatlantic trip a trip in vain.

While few science centers or museums can afford to create this level of immersion, there are some lessons to be learned from an exhibition like this. The use of personal connection, amplified with technology that works, can greatly increase the level of personal interest. The technology here was flawless. And we have all experienced exhibits where the potentially great technology functioned only minimally, creating a sense of frustration and alienation.

The use of all possible senses can add an important measure of connection. I wonder how much more we might be able to do within the science center context, for example, through the appropriate use of sound and smell in addition to the senses of touch and sight that we usually employ.

The final experience for visitors is a research room where visitors can look up their ancestors on a variety of web-based databases. Experts are on hand to help with a search, which may produce copies of original documents such as a ship’s manifest or a record from Ellis Island. I found 8 immigrants listed with my great-grandfather’s name (Adam Trautmann), but there was not enough information to select which (if any) was the correct one. I have some more homework to do...

Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, Germany

2007-08-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

The Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, which is not a really science museum or science center, but it has some very good displays of boats, ships, and marine-related technology. These exhibits include all manner of marine engines, mechanical devices, navigational equipment, and of course many different boats, starting with some more than 1,000 years old.

More important, however, are the stories that this museum tells and the way it tells them. The museum uses its stories to bring alive a subject that is increasingly distant for many people. There are some good lessons here.

For example, when I visited, the museum was showing a temporary exhibition called “Windjammer.” Having grown up with windjammer schooners (fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessels with 2 or more masts) on the coast of Maine, and having always enjoyed seeing boat shows with what some people call windjammers (square-rigged or “tall” ships), I was interested to learn that “windjammer” was actually a derogatory term used by sailors of square-riggers to refer to sailors of schooners (who did not have to climb the rigging to set and furl the sails and were therefore considered second-class sailors). This exhibition was full of stories, such as the medical roles of the captain (responsible for amputations and deliveries) and the first mate (responsible for the unpleasant task of lancing carbuncles – a common medical marine malady in those days). The photo shows a 3D model of what a typical carbuncle looked like, to go along with the text.

Sailors were given a checklist of gear to bring along, including 150 name tags so that they could sew in into every piece of clothing they brought on board.

Other exhibits in the useum told stories such as the conversion of an experimental nuclear-powered ship to a conventionally powered container vessel (the original control console of the nuclear version is on display - see photo).

Or of the coal-fired boilers on a steamship and how workers on these boats shoveled 24-7 to keep the fires burning and the ship moving.

This museum relates its objects to the everyday experience of its visitors, thereby generating a heightened sense of connectedness and curiosity compared with typical maritime museums. This approach provides answers to the question "so what?" that can turn an old object into a fascinating window on another time and place.

Technopolis in Mechelen, Belgium

2007-08-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Technopolis was a fun stop - I had planned to spend only a portion of a day there, but once inside, my visit quickly expanded into nearly two full days.

First, a bit about Belgium. The country is divided into very distinct halves, with the northern part (Flanders) speaking Flemish and the southern part speaking French. Technopolis is the only science center in Flanders and it both draws from and provides outreach to the entire region, which measures roughly 150 km E-W by 100 km N-S. The center is located between Antwerp and Brussels.

Technopolis opened in 2000 and has hosted a relatively consistent 250,000 annual visitors ever since. The project was the brainchild of Erik Jacquemyn, who began public science programming in 1985 and remains as the center’s director. Early on, the center decided not to group exhibits by subjects (physics, astronomy, electricity, optics, etc. ) or by themes (energy, communications, transportation, health) but instead created a series of flexible umbrella-like areas. One of these, called “Structures,” embraces exhibits in areas such as mechanics (structure of buildings) and DNA (structure of life). Another area called “Invisible” includes things difficult to see, such as electricity, microscopic things, and the ubiquitous Mindball exhibit, in which visitors relax their way to victory by creating more alpha waves, thereby sending a small ball rolling to the opposing visitor.

Technopolis unabashedly employs the Trojan Horse approach to public understanding of science: engaging visitors with fun, attractive, sometimes theatrical experiences and leaving them with a deeper understanding of science. Using a strong base of both science and performance, the center houses a colorful, attractive collection of exhibits from all over the world as well as many from its own extensive shop. The exhibits are highly interactive and arranged for maximum group interaction. One long wall of the museum is glass, providing lots of natural light which, in combination with carpeted floors, creates a visitor-friendly environment.

The exhibits include a number of standard Exploratorium favorites but also a number of original creations. Technopolis also creates and tours its own temporary exhibitions, such as one on “Health and Happiness” that is due to ship out later this year. This exhibition included dozens of interactive stations, all linked via bar coded wrist-bands to individual visitors. At the stations, visitors can measure the heart rate, test their math reasoning skills, evaluate their diet, and measure their flexibility before printing a color certificate with their individual results.

A new children’s venue, targeting 4-8 year olds, houses a colorful and highly interactive set of activities. In one area, visitor can have their picture taken and then print a sheet of Technopolis play money in various denominations with their face on each bill. Nearby stations include a counterfeit station that allows visitors to look at real Euro bills under a black light (a specific portion of each bill changes color) and a magnifier (letters in one word on each bill are themselves made up of tiny letters). Families are encouraged to talk about what would happen if everyone could print their own money.

Science theater is alive and well at Technopolis. As one staff member put it, “You have to be a performer to work here.” I watched an auditorium show, a Van de Graaff generator show, an object theater (“automatic”) show, and a mime doing science for young children and their families to the music of a nearby boom box. In almost all cases, the materials used in the activities were common, everyday things, and except for the mime, the phenomena were followed by clear explanations that related the observations to everyday life. Presenters were enthusiastic and dramatic in their presentations in a way that I found highly engaging.

Outreach is a strong part of Technopolis. Programs include: 1) a mobile science van that travels to schools, unfolds into a portable lab, and presents a highly tailored program for 30 students at a time that supports the 11th grade curriculum; 2) science puppet theatrical performances; 3) a van that goes to schools; 4) participation in public events; 5) much more.

Public relations and marketing are a strong component of this center. Their logo appears on everything, from exhibit signage to printed materials to their website, and a recent survey showed that 84% of all Flemish Belgians recognize the Technopolis brand (a remarkable accomplishment within 6 years of opening).

An outdoor science park has about a dozen exhibits, including this wooden xylophone.

The center has decided that it should address the issue of climate change, but that interactive exhibits are a difficult medium for the topic (in part because they take a long time and budget to develop). So Technopolis has opted for a programmatic approach that includes: 1) hosting a session by one of Al Gore’s ambassadors; 2) purchase of a “Magic Planet” exhibit with environmental graphics; 3) setting up a kiosk for visitors to read current articles on climate change; 4) taking part in world-side events (a public ice-science demonstration during the Live Earth concert in July; 5) serving as a venue for the new world-wide global warming DECIDE game, to be played on October 4); 6) providing support on connecting with the public for a series of 10 special science sections in a major Belgian newspaper, each of which will run 12 pages and which will include information on climate change.

Technopolis is high-tech in its internal systems, well-organized, and forward thinking. I was particularly impressed with the center’s big-picture outlook on opportunities for world-wide collaboration on projects related to public understanding of science and technology, including ASTC’s IGLO (International action on GLObal warming) project, transnational roundtables for professional development, and fostering the development of both regional and international museum networks.

Phaenomenta in Bremerhaven, Germany

2007-08-15T23:44:00.001-07:00

Phaenomenta, a small and decidedly funky little science center in Bremerhaven, is inspired by the original Phaenomenta in Flensburg (which I described earlier in this blog). The center is housed in an old concrete building in the southern portion of the old fishery district on the waterfront. The fishing and associated smells are now gone, and a number of new tourist attractions have sprung up instead. (In its current size and format, however, this center is not one of them).

The center has roughly 100 sq m of exhibits and a staff of 7 plus director. The exhibits are decidedly homebrewed and a mix of Exploratorium Cookbook favorites and funky originals.

One room was filled with a series of sound-related exhibits made from found materials (hoses, pipes, rope, etc.) that are scheduled to be changed out this fall and replaced by new exhibits. Several families with very young children were having a good time exploring the center. It took about 15-20 minutes to try most of the exhibits.

And a first for me: there was a candle in a floor stand with a Zippo lighter so visitors could light the candle and then blow it out with the nearby air cannon. The wick was so short that I burned my fingers trying to light it.

It was clear that this center has a very enthusiastic staff, with equally enthusiastic volunteers helping to build exhibits. One can only hope that this enthusiasm will translate into a larger, permanent home in the future and the resources to create a set of exhibits and programs for local families and their visitors. Given the strong tourism and climate orientation of the upcoming Klimahaus project, it would seem that there is plenty of opportunity for both venues in Bremerhaven. However, as currently set up, this center is too small to attract a regional audience and faces many challenges on the road to sustainability.

Klimahaus Bremerhaven 8-deg East, Germany

2007-08-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

Klimahaus is an exciting new 9,000-sq-m (100,000-sq-ft) attraction, based on global climate change, that is currently under construction and due to open next summer (2008).

The frame of the building is the wide, lower construction with cranes in the front of the photo, showing outward-sloping concrete columns in the lower half of the building. (The taller structure is a hotel, also under construction).

The project was proposed by the same private firm Petri and Tiemann (”Marketing, Themes, and Edutainment”) that operates Universum in Bremen. The venue will be operated by an independent company organized and owned by Petri.

The organizational model for Klimahaus is an interesting one. The project is being funded by the city of Bremerhaven (70 million Euros, or a little under $100 million USD), with a new for-profit management firm Klimahaus Betriebsgesellschaft mbH responsible for operations. Profits accrue to the management firm, but the building, exhibits, and land will be owned by the city.

Klimahaus, even while under construction, is a dramatic presence on the waterfront of Bremerhaven. Its kidney-bean-like shape is evokes the image of a cloud, and the exterior is entirely clad in glass, apparently with no two panels alike. And, according to the prospectus, there will be no right angles inside.

I observed the construction site (currently building interior reinforced concrete columns, beams, and floors) and was fortunate to receive the first English-language prospectus of the project, which included a DVD with a virtual 3-D tour through the building. A webcam is also available 24-7.

Inside, there will be three primary themes, including:

1) Journey: a trip to 8 different locations showing how people live in different climate zones along the 8-deg longitude line that goes through Bremerhaven;

2) Elements: an interactive look at the relationship of Earth, Wind (air), Fire (Sun), and Water to climate; and

3) Perspectives: a look at climate change, human influence, and what we can do to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.

Also, Klimahaus has produced a series of almost 20 interactive exhibit stations that are being sent to 30 schools over the next 2 years.

This project may well be the world’s largest museum venue specifically dedicated to bringing the issue of climate change to the public (for some time to come). It is clearly set up as an edutainment venue, with increased tourism for Bremerhaven the principal measure of success. However, the project team has been careful to engage climate experts from a several well-respected institutions (such as the nearby Alfred Wegener Institute) to ensure that the exhibits reflect the best current scientific thinking about global warming and climate change.

Universum in Bremen, Germany

2007-08-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

Just when I was starting to think I had seen most of the models for science centers in Germany, I visited Universum in Bremen and found a totally new concept, both in terms of the exhibits and management.

This center is now owned by the City of Bremen and managed by a for-profit corporation that pays annual rent to Bremen. The building is a dramatic pod-like structure, surrounded by shallow water, reminiscent of a whale from one angle or a mussel shell from another. The building is clad in shiny metallic panels resembling fish scales that ensure a reflection (if the sun is out) no matter what time of day.

Almost all of the income comes from the gate, gift shop, and cafeteria, with a small amount from corporate sponsorships. Inspired by the Exploratorium, the center was planned by a group of university scientists, politicians, and representatives from what is now the management corporation. The center opened in 2000 and has a close relationship with the university nearby; of the 130 staff, about 100 are university students, who wear red jackets and are called “scouts.”

Universum is organized along three basic themes: the Expedition Earth, Expedition Mankind, and Expedition Cosmos. Visitors start one of these three essentially linear experiences high above the ground floor and follow a wavy path downward through various immersive environments and interactive exhibits.

This huge map of the world shows the distance between Bremen, Germany and New York City in nanometers. The distance increases as you watch because of continental drift (about 30 mm/year, or 1 nanometer per second).

In July, Universum opened a new outdoor science park (photo left) that includes many hands-on water exhibits, a small climbing wall, an outdoor amphitheater with regular demonstrations by university students. Visitors can also jump using the human yoyo or sit and play a huge wooden xylophone. A new 27-m-tall observation tower (photo below) in one corner of the park is full of both interactive exhibits (drop balls down a tube and see the speed at various points) and contemplative exhibits (wind harp; small room with seats at the top with a square hole in the roof that encourages observing the sky without anything else in view.

Under construction and due to open in October is a new building across the street called the “Show Box,” which will have a 750-sq-m area for temporary exhibitions, a bigger exhibits shop, and office space. The first exhibition, opening later this fall, will be on chocolate. I took part in a visitor survey to name the exhibition (my contribution: “Chocolate: Food for the Mind”) and to contribute an experience with chocolate (“For more than 30 years, my top priority whenever visiting San Francisco has always been a trip to Ghirardelli Square for a hot fudge sundae.”)

At the top of the center is an inviting and well-stocked program room (see photo below) where school groups can come for one of many exploration programs offered by Universum.

It will be interesting to see how the new traveling exhibition venue Show Box across the street works in attracting additional visitors. Because of the public-private funding model for Universum, it is not a simple matter to obtain funds to replace exhibits in the main exhibition space, and the linear, thematic exhibition concept will likely require wholesale re-design and re-construction of a large complex space and the associated exhibits.

Artefact PowerPark and Natural Living Space, Gluecksburg

2007-08-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

Artefact is a real treat for those who find out about it and then can find it.

It is an outdoor park-type exhibition dedicated to renewable energy and sustainable lifestyles that are in harmony with nature. Everything here is powered by wind and sun, and most exhibits are outdoors. For the most part, they are interactive and several are clever in illustrating principles of energy. Several funky buildings house a exhibits and demonstrate how to use renewable and recycled building materials. All of the exhibits appear lovingly homebrewed, and many deserve more maintenance than they are able to receive.

Several exhibits demonstrate principles like potential and kinetic energy by allowing visitors to turn a crank that lifts a huge concrete weight; by pushing a lever, the weight falls and lifts up an almost equally heavy stone. In another exhibit, visitors spin a heavy rotating disc and can then feel the heat of friction when they push on a metal sleeve that acts like a brake.

Dozens of other exhibits range from solar cells that power a tall water fountain in a pond to blades from real wind turbines to a compost system, honey bee hives. There is even a pair of pigs. An operating wind turbine looked to be generating a significant amount of energy, but unfortunately there was no explanation or readout to indicate how much power was being generated.

The main solar array, however, had a readout that indicated instantaneous power, total kWh, and the equivalent CO2 avoided. The waste-water for Artefact is treated by a multi-phase natural system involving tanks, reed beds, and ponds and demonstrates how facilities can treat their own wastewater.

Artefact is (unfortunately) far off the beaten track but appears to attract a number of school groups for its educational programs. I wouldn’t be surprised if more educational parks like Artefact began to appear in other cities throughout Germany, or other countries where the environment is given a high priority. I could also see nature and science centers in the U.S. adopting this approach of outdoor exhibits to promote the importance of sustainable development, particularly among school children.

Phaenomenta: Flensburg, Germany

2007-08-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

Phaenomenta is a small but highly inspired and growing science center in the seafaring city of Flensburg (population 86,000), located on a beautiful harbor just south of the Danish border.

The origin of Phaenomenta is telling: Prof. Fieser, a professor of education at the University of Flensburg, had become concerned over the increasing disconnectedness between people and the phenomena of nature around them. So he began having his students build phenomena-based hands-on exhibits as a way to get them closer to concepts of natural science and to help them learn how to teach their students more effectively. The students helped public visitors use the exhibits, and soon the concept became so popular that the university said “Enough!” They told Prof. Fieser that the exhibits had to go because of the noise and commotion of increasing numbers of visitors clamoring to see the exhibits on campus.

The city of Flensburg saw value in the educational and tourism value of the exhibits and provided space for the next phase of Phaenomenta. Meanwhile, a group formed to build more exhibits, all with the philosophy of direct contact with real phenomena. The project grew and grew, and small buildings adjacent to the first were acquired and connected together. Today, the center has about 15 regular staff, 25 part-time students, and 4 interconnected houses full of exhibits plus a storage space across the street and additional space in an adjacent masonry tower remaining from the wall that once surrounded the city. A major addition is in construction that will add more exhibit space.

The building is one block from the harbor on a narrow cobblestone street, and parking will likely be an increasing issue as attendance grows. Inside, the building is a labyrinth of floors and ramps that invite playful discovery. Lighting is for the most part natural, and despite the small rooms, exhibits are placed around the floor in a way that encourages multi-sided group interaction and learning.

The exhibits are for the most part simple and an important aesthetic here is that they are built on simple gray bases that reduce the attractiveness and visual impact of the cabinetry and instead attempt to focus visitor attention on the phenomena themselves. Most exhibits are built on-site in a tiny shop (with some special services outsourced).

Exhibits are offered for sale on an informal basis to support the budget, which is supported 70% by admissions and memberships, 25% from sale of exhibits, and 5% from corporate sponsorship support.

The walls are used to good advantage for perception and optical exhibits. Exhibits are specifically not arranged in thematic groups because the museum believes that real phenomena and science are themselves not grouped by subject. There are so many combinations and overlaps in nature that educators here want visitors to experiment and discover that an exhibit on mechanics may just as well provide opportunities to experiment with perception, light, sound or other phenomena.

There is a small outdoor science park with a massive build-it-yourself ball raceway (using 100-mm-diameter PVC) and a clever water play area in which the water is pumped by visitors spinning a hamster-wheel.

Demonstrations are offered at noon and 3 pm by staff. These shows use everyday materials such as extinguishing a short candle in a bowl by adding vinegar and baking soda. The activities are presented on a simple table to small intimate groups in one of the galleries. Because visitors are standing right next to the presenter and the presenters are enthusiastic and friendly, visitors can really connect with science at these shows.

Phaenomenta has 2 small clubs for science enthusiasts ages up to 14 (one for girls, one for boys) that meet for 3-4 hours one night a week. Two students from the university in town staff the groups and help them with projects ranging building small exhibits to developing soap-box racers for competition.

The atmosphere at Phaenomenta is enthusiastic and dedicated, with a strong emphasis on its founding principles of hands-on learning, a focus on direct experience with phenomena, and the use of simple materials wherever possible. The center reflects an organization that is still young at heart, growing, and proud of its reputation.

Interestingly, several other groups in Germany have adopted this model and have spawned a “Phaenomenta” of their own. The network is loose and informal, and there are no central administration or regular network meetings. However, to use the name, a center must adopt the pedagogical principles of discovery learning and simple exhibits that focus attention on phenomena.

Museum of Natural History, Berlin

2007-08-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

The Museum of Natural History, a unit of the Humboldt University in Berlin, is housed in a large, old building built to store and display the museum’s collections. A portion of the building was destroyed during World War II, and the temporary wood trusses and roof, built by Russian troops following the war, are still visible on the top floor, where they protect a collection of 6 million beetles.

The museum recently re-furbished its exhibition on dinosaurs, and the entrance queue was 4-6 people wide and at least 100 meters long. The wait time was 60-90 minutes, and I was thankful for the ICOM card that the Deutsches Museum had given me, which allowed immediate entrance for museum professionals.

The museum houses a large collection that includes a mixture of traditional mounted animal specimens collected from all over the world, dioramas, and a series of new exhibition galleries. Of particular interest was a large new gallery called “Evolution in Action,” which contained a dense collection of well-displayed specimens showing principles of evolution. This exhibition was enhanced by very readable text panels in both German and English and had labels describing a number of key aspects of the theory of evolution.

Small video screens were embedded in key exhibit labels to provide layering of information: pressing a hypertext link on a graphic label would bring up short text or video explanations in a small monitor in the label.

One particularly interesting gallery was devoted to showing how the museum processes and preserves its specimens. Displays illustrated, for example, the steps in preserving a bird, a mammal, a fish, a fossil, and an insect.

Another gallery devoted to earth systems had a 4-m-diameter globe in the center with a pair of large flat-panel monitors that moved around the equator, playing short videos on topics like plate tectonics that were linked to the location of the monitor at that moment.

An astronomy gallery included a large, round padded couch-like pod where several dozen visitors could lie on their back and watch a video on a round screen overhead. The first half of the 7-minute video (no narration) showed the formation of the universe from the big bang through time, ending up zooming into roof of the museum in Berlin. The second half of the video switched from time to scale and whisked visitors back out of the museum through the powers of 10 to the edge of the universe. I watched hundreds of visitors view the video each time it ran through its cycle.

The dinosaur hall is 4 stories tall and houses what is reputed to be the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton. Several large monitors played animations in which the skeletons morphed into live dinosaurs in their natural habitats and back; these animations were very popular and excellent in showing visitors how the inanimate bones in front of them might relate to live animals in the Mesozoic. Several dozen video scopes at the corners of the gallery had lines 4-6 people deep.

A moving exhibition of large mounted photographs, called “Nature: Our Precious Network,” showed images of human impact on the landscape and was developed to raise public awareness of biodiversity in preparation for the 9th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (to be held in Germany in 2008).

This exhibition, which was located in a remote side gallery that was not heavily trafficked, included a text discussion of global warming and the potential impacts of human activities on climate change. This poster and its message, however, were pretty much lost amid of the captivating images displayed in the room. During about 15 minutes spent in this gallery, I saw less than half a dozen other visitors and none with children.

As we left the museum at 2 pm, the queue was still 50 meters long…

The next stop was a short section of the Berlin Wall that had been left intact at the edge of a cemetery in Berlin. At ~2.5 m tall, it’s hard to imagine the profound impact this flimsy structure had on the world between August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989. However, having been interrogated at machine-gun point in a concrete bunker after an East-German guard found several cassette tapes I had mistakenly left in a car-door pocket on the way through Checkpoint Charlie, this recent visit brought me right back to my experience of October 1987 and memories of the no-man’s-land on the East-German side, where attempts to cross were generally met with shots from ever-present guards.

Spectrum at the German Technical Museum, Berlin

2007-08-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

Spectrum is a relatively recent, hands-on venue that was added to the German Technical Museum. It is housed in an old, former railroad administration building and has several floors of about 20 small rooms with about 250 interactive exhibits. The rooms are organized by subject (electricity, optics, astronomy, physics, etc.), and essentially all of the exhibits were built at the museum. Most are mounted on relatively simple wood benches or frames and the mechanical parts were robust and had just enough of a homebrew flavor to look experimental. I was reminded of the early Exploratorium aesthetic, where the exhibits were designed so that visitors felt as if they were in a laboratory environment.

Because of the large number of exhibits and the small rooms, many of the exhibits were placed next to each other and against the walls. This meant that visitors could not easily congregate around them easily in family groups; visitors often circulated by moving along the rows of exhibits, rather than lingering and discussing what they were seeing and doing.

An interesting challenge is that the floor staff at Spectrum are provided by an outside agency and rotate between this center, the main museum, and other sites. Training is difficult because of the large number and rapid rotation of staff provided, and the museum itself has relatively little control over floor staff. At one point, while experimenting with an exhibit on spinning motion, I discovered that, depending on how I rotated a crank, I could produce several distinct modes of motion. At the point where I had activated a second mode (which not in the signage), a guide came by and corrected me, demonstrating how to crank the exhibit to produce the motion shown in the label.

The parent museum has plans to build a large, dramatic interactive science center called “Technoversum,” which will be thematically arranged (energy, communications, transportation, etc.) and will likely replace the somewhat funky “Spectrum.” Significant funds and other support must be raised, and because the city of Berlin currently has a large outstanding debt and other issues, a timetable for the project has not yet been possible. Fortunately, the museum has site control and can proceed with broad planning without concern over the timing or acquisition of the necessary land. As in most of the museums I have visited so far, I was impressed overall with the enthusiasm of the staff I met and their dedication to science and education.

German Museum of Technology, Berlin

2007-08-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

The German Museum of Technology is located in an area of the Berlin that was damaged during World War II and then further neglected during the Cold War that followed. The museum is in two parts: the larger part is historical and contains primarily non-interactive exhibits on the history of technology. A smaller part, located several hundred meters away in another building, is called “Spectrum” and houses an interactive science center. This first report focuses on the larger main museum (history of technology).

The building has an impressive street presence, with a high, glass skin reminiscent of the Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. An airplane sits atop the roof, creating a dramatic entrance. The museum consists of two interconnected buildings; the older building has displays on as transportation, textiles, etc. while the new building has a dramatic, multistoried section with much of the area devoted to the history and design of ships. The building is itself an exhibit on technology, with exposed structure and utilities and dramatic spaces on multiple levels. There are many full-sized boats as well as many ship models, cutaway sections of ship hulls, and other objects connected with shipping throughout the ages.

A changing exhibition area of about 300 sq m featured a panel exhibition called “Energy @ Home,” which included information on home heating, power, energy use in the home, windows and heat loss, and renewable energy. The exhibition, developed by the consumer protection board, takes a strong stand against human activities that lead to global warming. The exhibition advocates that consumers reduce their CO2 emissions as an important component of a sustainable future.

The exhibition, while primarily a panel display, includes several interactive components to help visitors engage with the text material. For example, one graphic panel on heating included a small piece of clear plastic with horizontal, triangular ribs on the outside and a small laser pointer on a movable arm (the Sun). Moving the laser to simulate a high sun angle (summer) the light is reflected by the panel, whereas rotating the laser down to simulate a low sun angle (early in the day or winter) the light passes thru the panel. According to the display, such panels can dramatically reduce the internal heating of spaces and reduce air conditioning loads at very low cost, while still allowing natural light in.

In addition to the ever-present energy-cycle (this one was hand-operated), a small chest freezer with its top tiled with foam insulation, wood, stone, and metal showed differences in thermal insulating properties.

Pamphlets provided consumers with tips on what to do to save energy, how to evaluate the pros and cons of installing a photovoltaic system, how modern windows work to save energy, and how to reduce CO2 emissions through replacement of light bulbs, air-drying laundry, etc.

Phaeno - Wolfsburg, Germany

2007-08-03T07:43:00.001-07:00

Wolfsburg, perhaps best known as the home of VW, is also home to a remarkable new science center called “Phaeno.” Opened in November 2005, Phaeno is located adjacent to a huge VW power generating facility in a dramatic concrete structure which has few right angles or straight walls. The center is a dramatic piece of sculpture in itself and creates an atmosphere that is distinctly playful, hi-tech, and just plain different.

From the washrooms to the omnipresent projections of quotes and schedules on walls and floor, everything is hi-tech. The atmosphere inside is high-energy; the concrete floors and hard surfaces ensure lots of noise and action. Few people walk around with their hands in their pockets.

After admission, visitors ride an escalator up to the start of the exhibit area. Our group was met their by an enthusiastic red-jacketed greeter/explainer. She described the day’s programs and mentioned a few things not to miss. This simple greeting served as a good orientation to the center and left our group ready to get started. Phaeno has 10 explainer-type floor staff at any time.

Phaeno gives the impression of an organization that did its homework, presenting what some might call “the best of the best” exhibits from around the world. They have had their exhibits built to the highest standards of durability and user-friendliness. The exhibits are for the most part traditional and include perennial favorites ranging from the foot-operated Cartesian diver, gyroscopic bicycle wheel, foam arch bridge, and electricity circuit lab bench.

Several observations: First, the exhibits were robustly built and most were in working order. The exhibits were designed and placed for family interaction; i.e, they were multi-sided, were at the right height, and were easily accessible for both children and adult users.

The signage was invariably bilingual (German and English), simple, and imminently readable. Each exhibit label followed a standard formula of what to do and notice, followed by a brief scientific explanation of 2-3 sentences. The signage was clearly placed, and often on a free-standing holder if it was not possible to mount the sign on the exhibit itself.

There were at least a dozen or so exhibits combining art and science. One particularly thought-provoking exhibit involving 25 coupled gears in which the last gear is embedded in concrete. As explained by the label, because of the number and ratio of the gears, it would take 594 billion years for that last gear to make one revolution. So no matter that it can’t move…

Several relatively common exhibits were enhanced in comparison with their usual implementation. For example, the Bernoulli Blower had artfully arranged hoops for users to try to navigate. Because of the design and placement of the exhibit, family groups can easily congregate around it and enjoy the experience, even though only one person can sit and steer the blower at one time. The stream table was one of the best I have seen and used white, artificial sand with a small percentage of colored grains that showed erosion effects well. The material was highly visible and did not get all over the floor the way sand normally does.

The walls, many of which are neither flat nor vertical, were used for kinetic sculptures (one particularly intriguing mechanical device takes 6 seemingly random pieces of wood and rotates them in to form a chair for a brief moment, and then quickly whisks them back out again on long, rotating arms.)

The gift shop was curiously located in a back corner and not near the exit. The food service was friendly, varied, and affordable.

In addition to the exhibits, there were four additional visitor activity spaces. In one, visitors in groups of up to 18 or so can perform simple lab-type activities in chemistry or biology. A second room is flexibly arranged for physical activities and birthday parties. A third space had been recently set up as a workshop where visitors can use simple tools and standard parts to build small devices like a front-end loader or a wind mill. Finally, a 250-seat auditorium is used for stage science shows with audience participation several times daily.

The exhibits workshop was quite small and bursting with machinery. It is used for repairs and staff mentioned that it is too small to build and test new exhibits. Also, because of the design of the building, several key spaces, such as the auditorium and largest visitor workshop mentioned above, are accessible only by going down and out of the museum and traversing across a windy, cavernous area at street level under the main part of the center. Nevertheless, the mid-day science show had standing room only.

Some visitors find the atmosphere at Phaeno busy, noisy, and unsettling. My observations of visitors were that most were fully engaged. I did not see many very young children, but I did see a surprizing number of teens, which might be due to the high-energy atmosphere. Families were experimenting together and seemed to have a genuinely good time. As mentioned by staff, one of the challenges for the future will be to build on the success of the first year and bring in new exhibits to increase repeat attendance, especially for local audiences.

Climate Change at the Deutsches Museum

2007-07-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

The Deutsches Museum currently addresses the environment and climate change through a permanent exhibition, a linked school program, and extensive website. One of the first things in the exhibition is a huge graph of population vs. date, which sets the stage for how quickly things are changing.

The exhibition occupies roughly 1,000 sq m and covers a combination of science, impact, and mitigation – the approach advocated by the International Panel on Climate Change and reflected in the structure of its working groups. The exhibition covers a lot of ground, including measurement of environmental variables, population growth, the greenhouse effect, recycling, changes in weather patterns, eco-friendly buildings, CO2, alternative energy, energy-saving appliances, and much more. The exhibition comprises a series of text and graphic panels, with a computer challenge and a few push-button demonstrations. The science shown is relatively well established, and the panels are in both German and English.

As described by the staff members involved in the development of the exhibition, the exhibition is encyclopedic. By covering a wide variety of topics in great depth, I observed that many visitors seem overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information displayed. It took me nearly an hour to read and absorb about ¼ of the exhibition. I saw many family visitors browsing for a few minutes and moving on to another gallery.

School groups in Germany study the environment in detail starting in the 7th grade. Schools can sign up for a guided program lasting 90 to 120 minutes, which typically includes 45 minutes of presentation (educator talking, children sitting on the floor in the gallery) followed by 45 minutes or so with groups of 4-5 students using the exhibition text to answer questions listed on a worksheet. At the end, students report out to the group so that in principle, everyone gets to hear answers to all questions.

Students at this age are naturally somewhat reticent to report out to their peers, so that the instructor often completes the answers so all students can hear them fully. A role-play post-visit activity is available for teachers wanting to follow up their visit with more depth. This program is fairly new, and about 900 students have done the program since the beginning of 2007.

By the time students have been thru the scientific basis and the impacts sections of the presentation, there is often not enough time or enthusiasm left for the final step, i.e. what actions can a person take to reduce their impact on global warming. Staff find that it’s a difficult topic for many students to get engaged in.

This exhibition provides a wealth of information for visitors who want to take the time to read it. The exhibition also points out the many challenges that museums face in bringing the issue of glabal warming to the public.

To provide the scientific foundation for global warming, it takes a lot of words.
Many people are reluctant to engage, where the message is not particularly positive.
It is not a simple task to generate hands-on exhibits that help visitors to engage in the topic.

Global Warming at Museums in Munich

2007-07-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

Surveys indicate that museums are at the top of the heap when it comes to public trust. In comparison with almost all other institutions and professions, such as medicine, law, the media, scientists, politicians, etc., museums stand out in the public mind as places where you can count on getting solid, accurate information.

This places a burden on us, however, to preserve and foster this trust. So when it comes to global warming, museums have a dilemma. At the Deutsches Museum, the largest museum in Germany and ueber-well respected internationally by virtue of its strong exhibitions and scholarly research over the past century, it was a difficult choice as to how to present the issue of global warming.

Some options considered were: Avoid the topic as still somewhat uncertain? Provide just the science to date? Advocate action in everyday life to build awareness and reduce the impacts?

After considerable internal debate, the Deutsches Museum decided to side with the IPCC’s findings – the UNESCO-sponsored International Panel on Climate Change - which is made up of many scientists, policy makers, and others. For nearly two decades, the IPCC has worked to provide the current information on global warming. Three working groups focus on: 1) the scientific basis for global warming, 2) the impacts to society of global warming, and 3) mitigation measures. In a series of increasingly strong reports, the IPCC has taken an unequivocal position that global warming is happening, that humans are the cause, and that we must act now to avoid catastrophic in our own lifetime. Here is a dramatic graph of world population over time near the entrance to the gallery.

In its Environment gallery, the Deutsches Museum has approximately 1,000 sq m of predominantly panel displays with a detailed treatment of the causes of global warming and what everyone can do about it. Students in grades 7-10 can take part in special 90-120 minute programs on global warming in this galley, as shown in the picture.

Another science museum in Munich, the Museum of Mankind and Nature, just opened a new special exhibition last Friday (July 23) called “Climate Protection: Everyone Can!” This exhibition was created by the Bavarian State Consumer Protection agency and funded by the Bavarian Ministry for Environment, Health, and Consumer Protection. In comparison with the permanent exhibition at the Deutsches Museum, this new exhibition bypasses most of the science behind global warming and goes straight to the bottom line, strongly advocating a series of actions that consumers should take now, such as eating locally grown foods, driving less, and buying energy efficient appliances. The exhibition is also panel-based, with doors on the panels providing additional text. There is also a TV exhibit with a long video clip and a computer quiz station, plus free literature and a visitor comment book.

Science Museums and Science Centers

2007-07-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, our department at the museum had their “Betriebs- ausflug” or organizational field trip. This is an annual affair, often to some nearby place of interest, with a tour, lunch, hike, and plenty of time to get to know co-workers. Our trip was to Oberammergau (see pictures), an amazingly picturesque Bavarian town known world-wide for wood carving and their production of the passion play, which takes place for an entire year once each decade (next production in 2010).

I had many interesting conversations with staff members and researchers working on a wide variety of historical topics ranging from educational philosophy to the impacts of agricultural technology to how the Nazis sponsored developments in loud speaker technology to promote their propaganda efforts.

The first activity of the day was a visit to the Oberammergau Heimat Museum. Heimat museums are common, and depict history and everyday live associated with an area. The one here had a remarkable collection of carved figures like this wandering woodcarver and Christmas crèches (one had been developed by many carvers over a period of 100+ years and included over 200 individual figures), wood carvings, rooms depicting the lives of different classes of people, etc. Later, the group hiked to a monestary in Ettal, the next town. The church there was exquisitely decorated, you can see.

In conversations about museums, you quickly get the sense of an interesting distinction here in Germany between science museums and science centers. As a civil engineer who switched careers into the museum field, I hadn’t been very aware in the U.S. of tension between these two flavors of institutions, which is however quite evident here.

In the U.S., organizations such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services and our American Association of Museums may have a check-off box on their applications along the lines of: Are you a “collecting” or “non-collecting” museum? To the casual observer, that’s about it. Our “collecting” museums often create interactive exhibitions just as do science centers, and in the U.S., you will hear the terms “science museum” and science center” uttered in the same sentence, pretty much interchangeably. The Association of Science-Technology Centers includes both museums and centers and doesn’t seem to make much of a distinction between the two, as far as I can tell.

Here, however, many people have mentioned that issues of funding, audience, and educational goals come into play. Museums preserve important historical objects and have a long history of state support. On the other hand, science centers do not (typically) collect objects of historical significance but compete for funding with museums. The audiences can differ, with museums attracting older audiences who are more likely to read labels and appreciate the historical significance of their objects, while science centers attract younger, family groups which, in general, may be more interested in hands-on, family experiences of a more immediate (and less historical and scholarly) nature.

The exhibition goals of a museum are often closely connected with the academic interests of the curators – what they select for display and how – while in a science center the goals may have more to do with what will attract and engage children and families. Both naturally share a dependence on special funding for their exhibition projects, but an exhibition in a "museum" might have more text and wall panels with information, as opposed to a science center, which might focus more on hands-on interactives in their approach to a topic.

Of course, there in reality a mix, and museums do include some hands-on interactive exhibits, and science centers may include some historical or non-interactive collected objects. But people do make the distinction.

Deutsches Museum 2: Foucault Pendulum

2007-07-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

I often have lunch with other museum guest researchers here at the Deutsches Museum. We usually wander across the river to the well-stocked cafeteria of the European Patent Office. The air conditioning is a bonus, and you can sit by a street-side window and watch Munich happening outside.

Recently, I had lunch with Ivo, an historian of mathematics, who told me that when he was 12, he visited the Deutsches Museum and couldn’t believe how slowly the Foucault Pendulum moved. So he did what any normal American boy might do (but which Germans would never dream of doing) - he climbed under the rope barrier to experiment with the swing of the pendulum. Problem was, he ended up breaking thingie with the little flip markers that record the movement of the Earth, which you can see in the third picture below.

Evidently he got into more than a little trouble and was hauled off to meet with the director himself. Now, more than 50 years later and retired, he still comes to the museum regularly to do historical research on mathematicians. My curiously whetted, I went right into the museum after lunch to check out the Foucault Pendulum exhibit for myself.

Ivo was definitely right, because I could also hardly believe how long its period (swing) was. So I timed 5 swings with my watch (which took almost a minute and a half). I did the math and came up with 60.01 m for the length of the pendulum. Sir Isaac would have been proud; when I checked the exhibit label, it reported the pendulum as 60 m long…

On a difference topic... there is much history nearby. The famous Hofbrauhaus is not far away, and across the street is the Munich Hard Rock Cafe. While every Hard Rock is decorated with dozens of objects of Rock and Roll history, I'm not sure how many can sport this guitar, which is made of a chunk of steel-reinforced concrete from the Berlin Wall.

Deutsches Museum - 1

2007-07-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

The Deutsches Museum is huge. Really big. They say you would need to walk 16 km to see the whole thing, and even if you tried to see it all and spent even a few seconds at each labeled exhibit, it would take you more than 8 hours.

We’re talking about huge stuff and lots of it. Today, for example, I counted 32 different airplane engines, 31 props, and I lost track after 40 different aircraft on several floors. There’s a full-sized V-2 rocket (complete with a picture of a town unlucky enough to have been hit by one during WWII), 4 helicopters, gliders, models… you get the picture.

I was particularly impressed by the steam engines of James Watt and others. These things, which were initially used to pump water from mines, are simply amazing to see in the flesh. Other favorite exhibits inside include a water gallery, children’s interactive gallery, and a chemistry area with dozens of push-button chemical reaction exhibits that demonstrate analysis, synthesis, biochemistry, and more.

There is also a gallery devoted to climate change and the environment, which I’ll describe later.

Outside in the entrance courtyard are several rides, including a small simulator and a ferris-wheel like machine (see photo) that gives one a great view from several stories up. There are other outdoor exhibits such as a human sundial (yours truly as gnomen) and the Sun station of a 4.6-km planet model (gold sphere).

92 Nights at the Museum

2007-07-19T05:59:00.001-07:00

The past several days have been pretty well consumed with getting set up. I suspect that by now, you’ve probably heard of the movie “Night at the Museum.” I am now living in a wonderful little one-room apartment reserved for guests of the Deutsches Museum here in Munich. I look out over the Isar River, which is all of about 30 m from my window and flows northeast thru Munich. My commute takes about 30 seconds, through a pair of heavy glass doors down a hallway with a work room for guest researchers where I have a desk and the Internet. My window here is on the same side of the long, narrow museum building.

Every morning, I have the pleasure of watching groups of happy school children from the second-floor windows in either my apartment or my office as they noisily (and always joyfully) walk with anticipation toward the museum entrance. The smaller children usually are holding hands in pairs. I can’t help but look at this daily sight as a poignant reminder of why we do what we do in the museum field.

Arrival in Munich

2007-07-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

My flight from Ithaca, New York to Munich was pretty routine. Except for the late departure from Philly – US Air said that the tailwinds were so strong that if we took off on time, we would arrive too early. Definitely first time I’ve heard that one.

The Munich airport was strangely quiet. Not a soul waiting at any of the 8 or so passport control windows – I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place, but the guy did stamp my passport and grunt at me to move on. No one was on the escalators to the baggage claim area. My luggage was already waiting on the belt when I got there, and nothing was lost. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop when our good friend Norbert arrived with a little trailer to carry the suitcases and 3 computer boxes containing 3 months worth of stuff. Above is where the first lunch took place.

It was cold outside – only 12 degrees – and rainy. And smoky. It ’s often hard to find a public place with clean air here.

Upon arrival at home, the first order of business was to sit me down with a good glass of Weissbier (wheat beer). I don’t know why we can’t brew a good wheat beer in the U.S., but the best I’ve ever had in the U.S. can’t hold a candle to even a run-of-the-brewery Bavarian Weissbier.

After a traditional Bavarian lunch of various cold cuts, cheeses, home-made jams, and half a dozen types of very hearty, whole wheat breads and rolls that seemed so healthy they almost made up for the cheese and meat I eagerly consumed after a night without food on the plane.

Survey on Sustainability at Science Centers (mostly U.S.)

2007-07-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

To form a base of comparison for observations about European Museums, I decided on a simple survey. I was fortunate in that Bonnie VanDorn, executive director of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, granted me some time at the April planning retreat in Chicago to describe my planned study and poll the 24 individuals present about what they were doing at their own home museums related to sustainability. This rather small and non-representative sample of 24 represents about 5% of the ASTC membership and is made up primarily of large museums having the resources to send their director to ASTC’s annual planning retreat.

Interestingly, a common verbal response from other directors polled was simply that they wished their own museum would give them a sabbatical leave as mine had. Coming from the academic world, sabbaticals are fairly normal; however, in the museum world, they are unfortunately rare and I know of only a handful of other museums whose directors have been granted a sabbatical.

My survey was informal and intentionally included mostly U.S. science centers (with a few others from around the world). The results indicated that most museums already had one or more exhibits and programs that treat the environment:

· 40% had static exhibits on the environment
· 88% had interactive exhibits
· 100% had educational programs

Regarding the types of environmental information presented to their audiences:

· 76% provide information on the environment
· 80% promote awareness of environmental issues
· 40% take an advocacy role

In addition, 58% indicated that they employ one or more green practices in operating their museum.

Finding Museums to Visit

2007-07-16T02:34:00.000-07:00

When I proposed to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn earlier this year to undertake a study of how European science museums portray environmental issues to their audiences, I had envisioned a relatively straightforward approach that included selecting a dozen of the most well-known museums and arranging a fact-finding visit to each, starting from a base at the Deutsches Museum in Munich and taking 3 big loops over 3 months.

Selecting the museums for my proposal was fairly simple – I went to the online ASTC museum membership roster and picked a dozen museums I thought I could reasonable get to in 3 months.

But as is usually the case, it wasn’t that simple. Many science museums in Europe are not ASTC members, and many European museums doing good work on environmental topics are not “science centers.”

Several individuals have been extremely helpful in making sense of the European museum landscape. Walter Staveloz at ASTC in Washington, Ulrich Kernbach at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Erik Jacquemyn of Technopolis in Belgium, plus many others, have collectively helped me learn more about European science-technology museums. Thanks to each of you!

I'm am eager to learn more about which European museums are doing the best work in public education on the topic of sustainability and climate change. Your comments are welcome – please send me email: cTrautmann@sciencenter.org

Renewable Electrical Energy from Wind

2007-07-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

Brian, our business manager at the museum, keeps a monthly eagle-eye on our energy use. For some time, he had been looking into a possible move to sustainable electrical energy through a program called “Catch the Wind” at New York State Electric and Gas, our local utility.

First, we started with a trial deal, paying a small premium on our electric bill to purchase 5% of our power from wind sources. It was great to be able to say we were buying at least a little renewable energy, but then we began to think, “Why not go 100%?” The extra cost would be about 20% of our annual $25,000 electric bill.

We hoped that, because of the museum’s visibility in our community, this move to 100% renewable power might encourage others do the same thing. We signed up and were amazed with the response.

We learned that we were the first facility in our region to go to 100% wind. A lead editorial in The Ithaca Journal, our local paper, used the opportunity to push for environmental awareness and encouraged others to go follow our lead.

Hester, our public relations manager, designed a wonderful “Powered by Wind” sticker, which we have put above all our wall sockets and light switches to remind visitors and staff of our investment and to encourage them to do the same thing at home. (Yes, I did it - for US $7.50 extra per month I now get 100% wind power at home).

Our Sustainability Activities Thru June 2007

2007-07-12T14:14:00.000-07:00

It’s taken me far too long to learn that the more say our individual museum staff have in developing their own work plans, the more creative an organization we become.

And while it sounded like the right thing to become more “sustainability” focused, we soon learned that the topic is so broad that we’ll never be able address all the issues we think are important. Taking the easy way out, I decided to go with the knowledge and interests of our staff and volunteers and assume that the right issues would emerge.

The process does work. We’ve had lots of creative suggestions on what to do. Alexis, an educator who runs our summer camp program, was concerned about the amount of paper plates, cups, and plastic silverware we were tossing out after each staff lunch or other event with food. The solution was right across the street at a restaurant supply store for under $300. We bought plastic dishes and cups, and stainless silverware. Each time we use this stuff now, we get the satisfaction of knowing that we are saving our landfill from a few more disposables.

Sustainability at the Sciencenter

2007-06-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

At the Sciencenter in Ithaca, NY, we have been on a crash course on sustainability for the past year. After the museum’s board decided to allocate 1% of our 2007 budget toward sustainability-related issues, during an all-staff meeting, we invited our staff and several volunteers to write down 2-3 things that we might do with our new funding.

We received dozens of ideas ranging from investing in alternative energy to buying green products to encouraging energy conservation to developing new exhibits and programs on sustainability. This short exercise yielded so many good ideas that we repeated it with both our board of trustees and our advisory board. We combined all the ideas on a spreadsheet with the number of times mentioned, proposed priorities as H-M-L, re-sorted, and brought the summary back to our staff for more discussion. This led to a set of prioritized marching orders, which we are now working on.

Sabbatical Prep

2007-06-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

I came to the museum world from a university setting, where sabbaticals every 7 years are the norm. I am fortunate that the Sciencenter’s board has been totally supportive of my taking time away from the museum after 17 years as executive director. They’ve encouraged me to go and are providing full salary for the duration.

The first task was to appoint an acting director for when I’ll be gone, and fortunately we have an associate director, Lara Kimber, who was right for the challenge. She recommended finding an organizational coach to help us identify the key issues she might face, and we were again fortunate to find a highly experienced consultant here in Ithaca who had served previously as CEO of major several major companies. We began to meet several months before my leave was to start, and his outside perspective helped us improve communication with board, staff, and other stakeholders. I can strongly recommend this approach to any organization contemplating a transition in leadership, whether it’s for a sabbatical or some other reason.

We searched the Internet and other sources for information on how to prep for a sabbatical leave. There was little help out there. Most of it related to universities, and none of it dealt with keeping an institution running smoothly when its CEO is gone for an extended period.
So we have decided to document what’s involved and how we did it, in hopes some other museum director will find something of use.

Goals for the expedition

2007-06-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

Why am I taking 3 months to leave what I enjoy most (working at our local science museum here in Ithaca, NY) to do this trip?

Ever since spending a year in Germany as a post-doc in civil engineering in 1987-8, I've had the sense that Europe is ahead of the U.S. in terms of valuing environmental concerns. Back then, I saw standardized community recycling stations in many communities. I saw that taking care of air quality, water quality, and preserving forests were a regular way of life. I saw many signs that corporate respect for the environment was considerably higher than in the U.S.

20 years later, the need has now become acute to preserve our environment and to reverse trends such as global warming, overuse of groundwater, and acidification of the ocean, to name only few.

So my goal is simple: to find out what what is to be learned about the ways in which various European museums have influenced the attitude of their audiences about the environment.

Do they stick to safe subjects, such as well-established topics in science, and avoid the issues?

Do they provide information on their local environment, such as animals to be identified or plant communities to be recognized?

Do they address topics like climate change and go the next step toward advocating action? If so, how? And how have they assessed the effectiveness of their efforts?

Getting Started

2007-05-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

I have an amazing mother-in-law. For more than 4 decades, she has been a staunch advocate for environmental issues. Unfortunately, although I have been steeped in these concerns for over 3 decades, I have been relatively uninvolved.

All this changed during Christmas 2005, when she gave me a copy of Lester Brown's book
Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. I was unable to put this book down, and I came out the other end with a new sense of concern and a call to action. The changes Brown documents, coupled with my own background in earth systems science, pointed to bad news ahead.

My first action was to become involved with a new program called IGLO (International action on GLObal warming) of the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) www.astc.org, a Washington, DC-based organization dedicated to making science centers successful. I had just joined the board of ASTC, and this seemed like a good place both to learn and perhaps to make a contribution.

I became sercretary of the education committee and over the next year coordinated an effort that produced about 200 pages of educational materials on global warming that are now available at www.astc.org/iglo.

I then became aware of the possibility for a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany, to spend 3 months in Europe pursuing a project of my choosing. I put together a proposal to tour a series of European science centers to learn about how they view their role in protraying environmental issues to their audiences and received funding in the spring of 2007. My home museum, the Sciencenter of Ithaca, NY (www.sciencenter.org) very generously granted me a 3-month sabbatical leave with full pay.

I am now preparing for my tour, which begins on July 9, 2007 I am collecting suggestions for which museums in Europe to visit and am open to ideas. I am looking in particular for museums that have a strong presence in environmental issues, either as advocates for action, or through providing information for visitors.

I plan to publish a short monograph on my observations in early 2008, if all goes well.

I will post to this blog periodically thru October 2007 and invite comments and suggestions.