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Imperial College taught me Bernoulli’s equation, but it wasn’t until
I visited Launch Pad at the Science Museum in London that I felt the force,
played, experimented and experienced that magic ‘Ahaah!’. I also learnt
more about the turbulent structure of the atmospheric boundary layer during
my first microlight flight than in three years’ PhD research. Am I deplorably
childish, harbouring a death wish, or learning by exploring, hands-on?

The public understanding of science is A Good Thing. Not only is daily
life full of potentially bewildering encounters with technology, but, it
is generally agreed, Europe needs a scientifically literate workforce and
electorate.

But how to promote this understanding? (Its French label, culture scientifique,
suggests an altogether more attractive definition of the concept, encompassing
appreciation as well as that difficult word ‘understanding’, with its connotations
of school learning and philosophical insight.) Interactive science exhibitions
– where visitors can experience scientific phenomena and experiment with
technology – are taking an attention-grabbing step in the right direction.

Don’t get me wrong: an interactive exhibition is no more and no less
than the high-profile public space in a science centre or museum. It is
one part of the institution’s carefully constructed programme of communicating
science. The science centre or museum, too, forms part of a bigger whole,
as an informal adjunct to the formal education system, and as a rather special
dish on the menu entitled ‘scientific awareness’.

Paul Wymer’s recent article in Forum (‘Never mind the science, feel
the experience’, 5 October) brought to the pages of New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ questions
that have been debated at small and large gatherings of the international
community of science popularisers since 1969. That year, the Exploratorium
in San Francisco and the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto first opened
their doors and introduced the public to a completely new medium for communicating
science: the interactive exhibit, which has an open-ended outcome dependent
on the visitors’ input.

Wymer says that the displays are disjointed, and oriented mainly towards
the physical sciences. Why should this be? One reason is that an eclectic
collection of exhibits is the hallmark of small, newly established exhibitions.
The first exhibits are those that are known – from observation in older
science centres – to be popular and likely to provoke the ‘Ahaah’ response.

Physics is an obvious starting point, for practical if not ideological
reasons: chemistry is messy, can be dangerous, consumes expensive raw materials
and the reactions take place on a molecular scale; plants and animals have
the unfortunate habit of dying if not carefully tended, and biological reactions
are normally slow, involving many variables that are hard to isolate. Funds
are always limited, and the priority is rarely to tackle difficult subjects.

With experience and larger galleries come time and space to develop
themes. At Heureka in Finland the thematic approach is on two levels: there
are broad areas in the basic exhibition – the Universe, life, human society,
technology – displayed so as, subtly, to draw intellectual links (see Bernard
Dixon’s review in New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ, 4 August 1990); stronger story lines, and
the fruits of current research, are presented in temporary exhibitions.

Heureka’s Exhibition on ‘Balance? Environmental Expo’ runs until May
next year, when it will be replaced by a celebration of 75 years of Finnish
independence, interpreted through science, technology and social history.
Outside Britain, ‘science’ can stretch from social to astronomical with
no perceptible demarcation lines.

So what do visitors learn? What do interactive science centres contribute
to the public understanding of science?

Psychological and educational research have a long tradition in museums.
Edward Robinson’s observations in art museums in the US 60 years ago have
been extended by numerous studies of visits to science centres and museums
with interactive exhibits (notably studies by Minda Borun and Judy Diamond
in the US and Roger Miles and Jerry Wellington in Britain).

The ‘average visitor’ is with a family that spend about half their two-hour
visit to a museum at the interactive exhibit. They are on the move, actively
exploring to get a sense of whole exhibitions, pausing casually at some
exhibits, and giving time and attention (interacting with each other as
much as with the exhibit) only to those few they find particularly engaging.
It may be a wet afternoon. They are looking for an ‘edutaining’ alterative
to the cinema, and delighted to find a welcoming place where science is
not scary and there are no wild-eyed boffins.

School groups represent some 20 to 35 per cent of visitors. Teachers
report positive effects on their pupils in the ‘affective’ domain – related
to emotions, attitudes and values – with a significant knock-on effect in
the cognitive domain. The visit is memorable, and the pupils’ memory bank
is a strong foundation for follow-up work throughout the school year.

Such anecdotal evidence abounds. Evidence from more rigorous studies
is patchy. If it takes half a lifetime to evaluate the benefits of adding
fluoride to drinking water, how long will it take to measure the impact
of interactive exhibitions on the number of top-grade GCSEs or on applications
for university courses, let alone on the nation’s appreciation of science
and technology?

But there is a general consensus (my thanks to colleagues for sharing
opinions and ideas so freely) that exhibits on their own are not good at
teaching. They are about inspiration. And interest, once aroused, must be
taken advantage of – by schools, and through all the activities other than
exhibits developed by museums and science centres.

The best offer not just exhibits but considerably more: in-house educational
programmes (those at the Singapore Science Centre and the Lawrence Hall
of Science in California, are outstanding), outreach programmes (the Shell-Questacon
Science Circus travels the Australian outback, and remote homesteads receive
the Science School of the Air by radio), science gardens (as at the Nehru
Science Centre, Bombay), access in laboratories to the process of science
(SciTech, Perth), audio-visual-multimedia presentations (as at Science North,
Ontario, among many), lecture-demonstrations (as at Eksperimentarium, Copenhagen),
science drama (as at the Science Museum of Minnesota), planetarium shows
(the inflatable dome at the New York Hall of Science can be packed up and
loaned to schools).

On top of all this, the members of ECSITE, the European Collaborative
for Science, Industry and Technology Exhibitions, aim to provide a changing
programme of temporary exhibitions, supplemented by special events – workshops,
camps, weekend festivals – for school groups and for families.

Is the goal of motivation – a prerequisite and prime constituent for
the public understanding of science – reason enough for funding interactive
science? Yes, of course! The goal of raising enthusiasm and opening the
door to a new interest is justification enough for supporting an art gallery,
or a prom performance at Covent Garden. So why not a modern centre for science
events?

Melanie Quin works at Heureka – the Finnish Science Centre, and is director
of ECSITE, the European Collaborative for Science, Industry and Technology
Exhibitions.