Exploring Science in Museums

Exploring Science in Museums PDF

Author: Susan M. Pearce

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780485900064

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The relationship between science and the public is one of the great contemporary debates. Understanding between scientists and non-scientists is a key figure in the dialogue and here the interpretation of science in museums has a vital part to play.

Art in Science Museums

Art in Science Museums PDF

Author: Camilla Rossi-Linnemann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-28

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0429958366

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Art in Science Museums brings together perspectives from different practitioners to reflect on the status and meaning of art programmes in science centres and museums around the world. Presenting a balanced mix of theoretical perspectives, practitioners’ reflections, and case-studies, this volume gives voice to a wide range of professionals, from traditional science centres and museums, and from institutions born with the very aim of merging art and science practices. Considering the role of art in the field of science engagement, the book questions whether the arts might help curators to convey complex messages, foster a more open and personal approach to scientific issues, become tools of inclusion, and allow for the production of totally new cultural products. The book also includes a rich collection of projects from all over the world, synthetically presenting cases that reveal very different approaches to the inclusion of art in science programmes. Art in Science Museums should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of museum studies, cultural heritage management, material culture, science communication and contemporary art. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals looking to promote more reflective social science engagement in their institutions.

Science Museums in Transition

Science Museums in Transition PDF

Author: Hooley McLaughlin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-08-23

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 1351036327

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Science Museums in Transition: Unheard Voices considers how museums can adapt their exhibits, programs, and organizational structures to the diversity of ideas, people, and cultures that speak to modern science. This collection contains individual expressions by museum insiders addressing a range of particular perspectives – Native American, African American, Latinx, Islamic, Israeli, Danish, white North American. These reflections provide guidance to the museum community as to how their institutions can become more thoughtful, more welcoming to diverse audiences, and more cognizant of the ways that different people incorporate science into their daily lives. As a whole, the book emphasizes the need for museums to engage in dialogue with their visitors – not merely to present them with information – and to offer the opportunities to share experiences, exchange perspectives, and thereby advance science learning through a dynamic and collective process. Science Museums in Transition is intended to further discussion on how museums address the political and social ramifications of science and, as such, should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of museum studies, science, anthropology, education and history. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals around the globe.

Museums and the Public Understanding of Science

Museums and the Public Understanding of Science PDF

Author: John Durant

Publisher: NMSI Trading Ltd

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 9780901805492

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The essays in this volume are organised thematically. The first essay sets the scene by reviewing the present position and future potential of science museums as educational and cultural resources. The next section is devoted to the role of museum exhibitions and analyses how exhibitions deal with complex material. The third section is concerned with museum programmes and reports on the strengths and weaknesses of different museum programmes, ranging from gallery drama to the Boston Museum's innovative experiment with Science-by-mail.

Curious Devices and Mighty Machines

Curious Devices and Mighty Machines PDF

Author: Samuel J. M. M. Alberti

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2022-10-19

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1789146399

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From their quirky origins to their contemporary role as centers of advocacy, a look at the secret lives of science museums—past, present, and future. Science museums have paradoxes at their core. They must be accessible and fun while representing increasingly complex science. They must be both historic and contemporary. Their exhibits attract millions, but most of their objects remain in deep storage, seldom seen. This book delves into these conflicts, revealing the secret lives of science curators; where science objects come from and who uses them; and, ultimately, what science museums are for. With an insider’s eye, Samuel J. M. M. Alberti exposes the idiosyncratic past and intriguing current practices of these institutions—and sets out a map for their future.

Exploring Science and Art

Exploring Science and Art PDF

Author: Mary Kirsch Boehm

Publisher: City of Light Publishing

Published: 2023-01-23

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1952536138

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What do Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso have in common? Can we learn about science by studying art There are many connections just waiting to be discovered between the natural world and artistic techniques that have been used for centuries. Mary Kirsch Boehm systematically guides you through a look at science with an artistic eye, introducing an integrated and often overlooked view of the two disciplines. By exploring the materials and techniques of art and the science behind them, Boehm reveals just how interconnected our world really is.

Science for the Nation

Science for the Nation PDF

Author: P. Morris

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-05

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0230283144

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An engaging study of a great national institution. Essays explore the changing roles of museums and the perceived public role of a museum of science and technology. Illuminates the ways in which we think about the collecting and display of objects and the often difficult relations between the state, business and industry, and museum funding.

The Reflective Museum Practitioner

The Reflective Museum Practitioner PDF

Author: Laura W. Martin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-06

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0429655703

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The Reflective Museum Practitioner explores a range of expansive and creative ways in which the concept of “reflective practice” has been applied in the informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning environments of museums and zoos. It seeks to demonstrate how such a process can inspire lifelong learning in practitioners, to the benefit of practitioners and visitors alike. Presenting six projects that employed reflective practice, the contributors examine how each project has encouraged and sustained reflection, and the outcomes thereof. The projects cover a wide range of different practitioners—including administrators, scientists, educators, and other front-line and back-room staff—who work at different junctures of their organizations. Collectively, they raise key questions about changing communities of practice in Informal Science Learning institutions. The projects and concept of “reflective practice” are fully defined and contextualized by the editors, who offer in-depth analysis, along with a cultural-historical activity theory framework, for understanding how changes in museum practice unfold in an institutional context. The Reflective Museum Practitioner offers museum professionals insight into “reflective practice,” as practiced by other institutions in their sector, providing practical examples that can be adapted to their needs. It will also be of interest to scholars and students focusing on science museums, or professional practice development in museums.

Life on Display

Life on Display PDF

Author: Karen A. Rader

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-10-03

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 022607983X

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Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums’ shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions—and the institutions that housed them—between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education. Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century’s last decades. A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers.

Exploring Science Communication

Exploring Science Communication PDF

Author: Ulrike Felt

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2020-01-27

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1529715512

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Exploring Science Communication demonstrates how science and technology studies approaches can be explicitly integrated into effective, powerful science communication research. Through a range of case studies, from climate change and public parks to Facebook, museums, and media coverage, it helps you to understand and analyse the complex and diverse ways science and society relate in today’s knowledge intensive environments. Notable features include: A focus on showing how to bring academic STS theory into your own science communication research Coverage of a range of topics and case studies illustrating different analyses and approaches Speaks to disciplines across Media & Communication, Science & Technology Studies, Health Sciences, Environmental Sciences and related areas. With this book you will learn how science communication can be more than just about disseminating facts to the public, but actually generative, leading to new understanding, research, and practices.