In recent decades science museums have made significant progress in meeting the needs of visitors with a range of disabilities—physical, cognitive, and behavioral. But much more remains to be done for the inclusion of people with disabilities to become the norm. In this issue, we explore what it means to be inclusive and how science museums can adopt universal design practices to make accessibility part of their institutional culture. The articles include personal perspectives from two authors with disabilities as well as guidelines, resources, and specific suggestions that any institution can use to provide a successful experience for every visitor.

Contents

• Changing Practices: Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Science Museums, by Christine Reich
• An Institutional Culture of Inclusion, by Elizabeth Fleming
• Universal Design: Inclusive and Accessible Museum Experiences, by Sina Bahram
• The Adaptive Mindset: Reflections on Accessibility, by Gabrielle Trépanier
• Engaging Students with Disabilities in Accessibility Reviews, by Sheryl Burgstahler and Lyla Crawford
• From Access to Inclusion: Welcoming the Autism Community, by Paula Rais

Subscribe/order back issues

Science museums hold great promise for engaging learners of a broad range of abilities and disabilities in informal science learning. As institutions known for their interactive and self-directed activities, science museums already exhibit many of the principles of universal design for learning that foster equitable learning environments for all (see the Center for Applied Special Technology). Science museums have the ability to present information and content in a variety of ways, they can offer visitors multiple ways to express themselves, and they are designed to foster interest and curiosity. In fact, these very characteristics of science learning experiences in museums have been found to eliminate the performance differences that can exist in the classroom between students with disabilities and those without disabilities.

While science museums hold great potential for being welcoming and inclusive of visitors with a broad range of abilities and disabilities, the question remains: Do we live up to that potential? Looking back, I see evidence that science museums have become more inclusive of people with disabilities over time. Looking ahead, however, I believe much more work remains. Fortunately, new insights on ways to create lasting change toward greater inclusion of people with disabilities make me feel that change is possible and feasible in the years ahead.

Looking back over the past 15 years

The year 1997 marked the beginning of the ASTC Accessible Practices initiative, which set out to improve accessibility in science museums across the United States, and also the beginning of my professional career in science museums. Since then, science museums have taken great strides to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. Most museums now consider wheelchair access when designing exhibitions, many offer visitor services such as assistive listening devices or wheelchairs, and some reach out to audiences not considered 15 years ago, such as children on the autism spectrum or with other intellectual disabilities.

The field has also begun to think more broadly about what it means to be inclusive. When I look at the content on the ASTC Accessible Practices website, which is still a phenomenal resource, I’m reminded that much of our thinking in the late 1990s focused on physical aspects of inclusion, such as height and reach of exhibits and accessibility of the physical museum building. Only a few individuals at the time (such as my mentor and close friend Betty Davidson, now retired from the Museum of Science, Boston) were thinking more broadly about inclusion.

Today, the term inclusion has a more multidimensional meaning. As outlined in the 2010 Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) Inquiry Group Report titled Inclusion, Disabilities, and Informal Science Learning, inclusion extends beyond physical access. Inclusion now also encompasses ways to cognitively engage all visitors in learning about science and ways to enable all visitors to interact socially with others in their visiting group. The report found many examples of science museums taking actions to create a learning environment that is both physically and cognitively inclusive. Unfortunately, only a few museums explicitly address issues of social inclusion.

Fifteen years ago, few science museums addressed issues of inclusion in a meaningful way. Today, science museums around the world take intentional, meaningful, and repeated actions to be more inclusive of visitors with a broad range of abilities and disabilities. Even those museums that took actions to be more inclusive years ago have since expanded how they think about inclusion.

When I first started working at the Museum of Science, Boston, the inclusion of people with disabilities was largely addressed within exhibitions and through special programming. Today, we have an official accessibility initiative aimed at improving access for people with disabilities across the entire museum. We consider the inclusion of people with disabilities in exhibition design, facilities management, visitor services, programming, human resource policies, professional development offerings, and information technology development. These efforts are funded through a variety of sources, including the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Science Foundation, nongovernmental foundations, endowments, and our general operating budget.

The great progress we have made as a field over the past 15 years is certainly worth celebrating. However the unfortunate reality we found while researching current practices to develop the CAISE report is that true commitment to the inclusion of people with disabilities remains an exceptional practice—not the norm. What can we do to move this effort forward? One route is to seek change within our own institutions.

Changing our institutional practices

How do we change institutional practices so that our museums become more inclusive of people with disabilities? I have sought to answer this question through a multi-year, two-phase research study funded through the IMLS National Leadership Grants program.

Phase one consists of an extensive literature review to examine 25 empirical studies of organizational change toward the inclusion of people with disabilities in a broad range of institutions (schools, museums, other non-profit organizations, and businesses) around the globe (e.g., the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain, Canada, and India). Phase two features an in-depth study of three science museums that have taken substantial actions to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. Although the phase two findings are not ready for publication, lessons from phase one, combined with information from the CAISE report, sketch a pathway for facilitating change toward inclusive practices within science museums.

After reviewing 25 empirical studies on organizational change and inclusion, I found that seven important factors facilitate a change toward the inclusion of people with disabilities:

1. Shared inclusive cultures, values, and beliefs facilitate change when present in an organization, and impede change when absent.

2. Distributed knowledge and expertise can facilitate change, and conversely, an overreliance on the knowledge of any one individual (whether an internal or external expert) impedes change.

3. Distributed leadership is an important component of successful change, particularly when the formal leader is knowledgeable of inclusive practices and fosters further leadership within a group of individuals.

4. Collaboration is a key element of change when carried out in multiple dimensions (between internal and external stakeholders, among staff members, across hierarchical levels, and with institutions of similar types).

5. Involvement of people with disabilities is critical, as such individuals play a role in advocating for change and challenging traditional assumptions about the limitations of disability.

6. An on-going learning process that may include elements of inquiry and reflection appears to facilitate change, while an overemphasis on one-time events poses significant barriers.

7. The perception of available funding can facilitate change when staff members believe funding sources exist, and can serve as a barrier when they believe funding to be unavailable.

My findings from this literature review resonate with information we gathered when writing the CAISE report about the practices of seven science museums that demonstrate a commitment to the inclusion of people with disabilities. Shared inclusive values and beliefs were evident in several of these institutions’ official position statements about disabilities. Two noteworthy examples were from the Pavilion of Knowledge (Ciência Viva) in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Chicago Children’s Museum. The latter states on its website that, “access and inclusion practices are intended to open doors and are recognized as critical components of the museum’s planning and development.”

Most of the seven institutions distributed knowledge of inclusive practices (and perhaps distributed leadership, as well) through internal professional development experiences that were offered to a broad range of individuals. For example, the Education Inclusion Initiative program at Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, extended across a broad range of educators at the zoo, including those who facilitate interpretation carts, organize lectures, and coordinate internships.

Change was also an on-going process at most of these institutions. We saw evidence that many of these museums were building upon their prior work, as well as the work of others in the field. Some of them, such as the Science Museum of Minnesota, Saint Paul; the Museum of Science, Boston; and the New York Hall of Science, integrated evaluation (a form of inquiry and reflection) into their ongoing change process.

Perhaps most importantly, these museums all shared a common practice of involving people with disabilities. For example, at the Science Museum of Minnesota and the New York Hall of Science, people with disabilities work as staff members or volunteers, serve as advisors and consultants, and provide feedback through regular testing of exhibits and/or programs.

Looking ahead to the next 15 years

Reviewing the changes over the past 15 years makes me hopeful about changes we will see in the next 15. As more and more science museums adopt inclusive practices, I can imagine a time when it is commonplace to present information in multiple formats (not just with text labels, but also with audio, images, and video), to offer multisensory interactives, and to provide scaffolding and supports that aid all visitors in learning about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. I can also envision a greater emphasis on the social inclusion of people with disabilities, making sure they can learn alongside, not segregated from, their friends and family.

While some may see this vision as rosy-eyed and unrealistic, I see it as a necessity. Only through such changes can science museums begin to live up to their potential as places that engage all visitors in informal science learning and help all individuals feel that learning about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is for them.

Christine Reich is director of research and evaluation at the Museum of Science, Boston.
About the image: People with disabilities assist in the development and testing of a new exhibition at the Museum of Science, Boston. Photo courtesy Museum of Science, Boston

I was struck by an article in a recent edition of Science magazine (September 28, 2012; p. 1623) that discussed new studies concerning scientific thinking in young children. The thrust of the article is that, when even very young children think and learn, they employ intuitive processes that are directly analogous to the fundamentals of scientific inquiry. Children make detailed observations of their worlds, systematically formulating hypotheses, experimenting, analyzing, revising, and making decisions in essentially the same rigorous fashion that defines good science.

While this notion may seem obvious and simple, it actually contradicts historical theories of cognitive development that depicted young children as irrational chance-takers whose observations and conclusions of the here and now required considerable external direction as part of cognitive growth. Yet, empirical evidence now clearly demonstrates that children are innately equipped with a considerable amount of basic intuitive capability that is continuously tested and validated in ways that parallel the logical processes of scientific thinking.

I drew several conclusions from this research that can have important implications for the ways in which science centers and museums everywhere characterize their impacts in the educational arena. The research suggests that young children have both the intuitive capacity and the preference to “think like scientists.” It is the way they naturally think. We speak so often about our role in helping children come to understand these processes and employ them when, in fact, our approach in science centers and museums is more to reinforce children’s cognitive predispositions and to help them validate their own approaches. Children enjoy the science center and museum experience because it allows them to do what they do best. And what greater satisfaction, confidence boost, and sheer enjoyment than to have one’s inherent skills so positively reinforced?

It may be a subtle point in this research, but as we introduce our young visitors to the vast world of science, connecting them with processes that they already feel within, we are helping them to trust those methods of thinking and learning, and we are using science to help them build self-assurance about ways to view so many other dimensions of their lives. As we focus on transforming minds with scientific inspiration, let’s be reminded as well that science is already at work in the poised and prepared minds that come to play.

This interview appeared in the November/December 2012 issue of Dimensions magazine.

Laddie and Jim Elwell grew up in the Eastern United States with ready access to museums. When they noticed a lack of such resources near Bemidji, the small Minnesota town they now call home, the couple took action. This year Laddie and Jim are retiring as executive director and financial officer, respectively, of Headwaters Science Center (HSC), which they opened 18 years ago. They spoke with Dimensions about their grassroots effort and how ASTC has helped them along the way.

Read the full transcript, or listen to the podcast.

This is an extended discussion of the question that appeared in the Viewpoints department of the November/December 2012 issue of

My ideal museum experience is memorable. It requires only one cool exhibit experience where I spend significant time, engaged in a way that taps into previous interests and expands my thinking. It makes me wonder about something and allows me to explore an idea viscerally, using my hands—even my full body. Connecting with others (family, friends, or a museum educator) around the phenomenon is important, too, as it shapes and grows my own perspective. Yet I have to own the activity, by directing next steps and reflecting on what I did and learned. Ideally, I’ve embodied a concept, had my interest piqued, and am primed to explore further. In fact, my ideal museum experience is more than memorable. I’ve come to care.

Tracey Wright, senior researcher and developer, TERC, Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is developing a 10,000-square-foot (929-square-meter) education space that is equal parts collections vault, lab, field station, and town square where visitors will build their own ideal museum experiences. With Slover-Linett Strategies, we asked our visitors what that meant to them. They told us that their ideal museum experiences are dynamic, immersive, personalized, relevant, one-of-a-kind, and surprising. We’ve built a process to develop experiences that deliver on these expectations and will constantly test them in the education space, learning with our visitors about ideal museum experiences and when we know we’re achieving them.

Shari Werb, director of education and outreach, and the Education Center Team, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History

Affordable parking. Bathrooms that are easy to find. And plenty of floor staff who are knowledgeable and excited about the content while being committed to making the visitors comfortable in the museum.

Erika Kiessner, senior exhibit developer, Aesthetic Studios, Toronto

The key may be not to focus on federal mandates or broadly defined needs (though I know it’s difficult because they pay the bills) but rather to find out who your visitors are and what they say they want, and add your expertise and experience to interpret those needs. This may require the critical skill of being able to step out of the “professional” shoes and think about what each of us would want from a museum through the lens of our own consumer/learner experiences. We are not very different. Just pay attention to what drives your unique visitors in your unique institution. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

Hever Velázquez, research and evaluation associate, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Portland

The above statements represent the opinions of the individual contributors and not necessarily the views of their institutions or of ASTC.

About the image: At the Mobius Science Center in Spokane, Washington, visitors move a ball using only the power of their minds. Headbands equipped with metal sensors detect brainwaves, which become elevated with relaxation. Photo courtesy Hamilton Studios

Rapid innovations are continually impacting society and our daily lives. Science centers have an important role to play as a link between innovators and the public, a guide that helps communities navigate a constantly changing world, and a safe place for visitors to unleash their own creativity and imagination. In this issue, we look at innovation from multiple perspectives—from how science centers are fostering new innovators and highlighting innovation in their communities and beyond, to how they are applying innovative technology and new research to enhance learning within their walls.

Contents

• Nurturing the Innovator’s Mindset, by Tim Ritchie
• Why Talk About Innovation in Science Museums?, by Erika Kiessner
• Inspiring Visitors to Tinker, Create, and Innovate
• A Science Center’s Role in Innovation During Changing Times, by Kate Bennett, Debra A. Jacobson, and Calvin Uzelmeier
• Born in Israel: Showcasing Our Innovations, by Maya Halevy, Varda Gur Ben Shitrit, and Dea Brokman
• Augmented Hands-On Exhibits, by Karen Elinich
• How New Family Learning Research Can Inform Innovative Programming, by Heather Toomey Zimmerman

Subscribe/order back issues

Everyone agrees that it will require an enormous commitment to innovation for humankind to survive (and thrive!) on our fragile planet. But to what must our communities, and our nations, commit in order to foster world-changing innovation? What roles can science centers play in nurturing innovators and encouraging innovation?

We think about these questions a great deal at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. We are located in the heart of Silicon Valley, so if anyone should be able to describe what it takes to nurture innovation, we should.

One of the Tech’s Board members challenged his associates at Bain & Company (a management consulting firm) to identify why innovation flourishes in Silicon Valley. The unpublished Bain report describes the habits and mindset of successful innovators and the ecosystem that nurtures innovation. This article focuses on the innovator’s mindset, because every science center can do a number of things to develop that mindset. I also briefly describe the ecosystem that innovators need in order to succeed. In some cases, science centers can play a role in nurturing that environment as well.

The mindset of successful innovators

The Bain report identifies five characteristics of successful innovators:

1. They spot opportunities and follow their passion. For example, K.R. Sridhar, the founder of Bloom Energy, worked for NASA to develop a technology to convert electricity into oxygen. He believed that he could reverse this process and convert oxygen into electricity, thus providing to the world an abundant source of sustainable energy. Sridhar left NASA in 2001. Nine years later, the Bloom Energy Box went on the market.

2. They take risks and persist through failure. Successful innovators experience setbacks, learn from each one, improve, and, with sufficient grit and wisdom, ultimately succeed. The failures of Steve Jobs are legendary. He and Apple spent $50 million in four years developing the Lisa computer. Lisa’s high price led to low sales. Lisa was abandoned, but Apple itself persisted, learned valuable lessons, and switched its focus to the more affordable Macintosh, which was introduced in 1984.

3. They question conventional wisdom. Successful innovators understand that they will be surrounded by people who say their ideas won’t work. For example, Samuel Ginn, who founded AirTouch Communications, saw, long before others, that the future for communications rested with wireless technology. He left his position as CEO of PacTel in 1984, founded AirTouch, and took his company to the stock market in 1993 with an initial public offering of $1.57 billion.

4. They build teams to compensate for their weaknesses. Successful enterprises require many different skills: technical, financial, leadership, sales, and so on. Successful innovators do what they do best and find others to do the rest. In 2008, Leila Janah founded Samasource, a nonprofit organization that invented “microwork” to enable people with no previous computer experience to make a living using a computer. Leila had studied economic development in Africa, but she knew little about technology, so she hired a vice president of engineering and a COO and developed a company that now provides over 2,000 jobs in Kenya, India, Pakistan, Haiti, Uganda, and South Africa.

5. They encourage the right behaviors in their organizations. Successful innovators identify what makes their enterprises successful and reward it. For example, Google succeeds because it innovates faster than its competition. Google encourages innovation in as many ways as it can: Its engineers are allowed to dedicate 20% of their time to innovative projects, it holds regular “tech talks,” and it runs a “Google University.” As Business Week noted, “one of the key reasons for Google’s success is a belief that good ideas can, and should, come from anywhere.”

What can science centers do to nurture the innovator’s mindset?

No matter where a science center is located, it can offer programs and create exhibit experiences that encourage the development of an innovator’s mindset.

• Offer programs that encourage an innovator’s mindset

Host science competitions. For 25 years, the Tech has held the Tech Challenge in which students from third grade through high school work in groups to design a solution to an engineering challenge (such as rescuing a person who has fallen from a bridge after an earthquake), build a prototype, and demonstrate their device in front of thousands of spectators. The competition gives students opportunities to follow their passions, take risks, work hard and persist through failure, think beyond conventional solutions, build teams, and establish an effective culture. In so doing, they learn a bit about what it takes to become successful innovators.

Offer design-challenge education programs. Design-challenge learning takes hands-on learning to another level by asking people not only to learn by doing, but also to apply their creativity to open-ended engineering challenges. The Tech runs a series of lab programs, most of which are design challenges, in which students work together to solve engineering problems. They then present their solutions to the entire group. The final presentation shows that there are many ways to solve a problem and many paths to an answer.

• Partner with local innovators to create exhibits

At the Tech, we are committed to creating exhibit experiences that will nurture the innovator’s mindset. Over the next five years, we hope to develop 30,000 square feet (2,800 square meters) of exhibit space to create design-challenge exhibit platforms. These platforms enable us to partner with Silicon Valley–based businesses to showcase how technology solves problems. We will work with the businesses to use their products to create these open-ended exhibit experiences.

One of our first partners in creating a design-challenge exhibit experience is a local robotics company, Willow Garage. Willow Garage has developed an advanced robot called “PR2,” which visits the Tech on weekends. We surround PR2 with eight programming stations and challenge visitors to make the robot do something amazing. Visitors learn simple code and then program the robot. They run their programs (in front of everyone) and see if PR2 acts as they had envisioned. The exhibit pushes visitors to use their imaginations, take some risks, work with others, and apply technology to solve a problem.

We have also developed a strong relationship with the Maker Faire community. This past summer, we showcased 25 exhibits from the May 2012 Maker Faire Exposition that took place in San Mateo, California. These open-ended exhibits encouraged collaboration and offered visitors the opportunity to solve problems in a variety of ways. Chances are that the “maker community” near your center would love to partner with you, as well. (For more about the Maker Movement, see the July/August 2012 issue of Dimensions.)

The ecosystem that nurtures innovation

Innovators cannot succeed if the communities where they work don’t support innovation. The Bain report describes five factors that make up an “innovation ecosystem”:

1. A robust research community. Silicon Valley is full of strong universities and research institutions. They are the life-blood of every community that is rich in innovation.

2. A network of innovative companies. These companies are often the products of the research community. They, in turn, play their own role in providing start-up businesses with technology, talent, and resources.

3. Abundant funding. In 2011, Silicon Valley received 41% of U.S. venture capital funding.

4. Laws that encourage innovation. An example from California is that noncompete clauses are rarely enforced. That is, someone who leaves a company can work for its competitor right away.

5. Support from the legal and accounting communities. Law and accounting firms frequently offer free services to start-ups.

What can science centers do to nurture the innovation ecosystem?

Gather and support the innovation community

Develop relationships with the people who are innovation’s gatekeepers: investors, entrepreneurs, university faculty, and lawyers who work with young companies. Get them involved with your center and with each other. Find where there are gaps in the ecosystem and try to be a catalyst (or at least a gadfly) for change.

Advocate for continued public research funding

Many successful innovations can trace their origins to a stream of public funding. The major research universities that produce innovations are able to do so because they receive significant public funding. In the United States, the advances in medicine due to National Institutes of Health funding are too numerous to count. So too are the advances in science stemming from funding that comes to and through the National Science Foundation, NASA, NOAA, and myriad other agencies and research labs spread across the country. Science centers can celebrate the role of publicly sponsored research and make visitors aware of what is at stake should public support wane.

Celebrate innovation itself

Innovation is worth celebrating in the same way that science itself is worth celebrating. We engage in science and innovation because we are convinced that the universe is both knowable and abundant with answers to the problems we face. Innovators instinctively have this view of reality. It enables them to follow their passions, defy conventional wisdom, take risks, persist through failure, build teams, and start enterprises.

Our science centers should find ways to celebrate innovators. Their successes can give us courage to take risks and persist through failures. Our science centers should also find ways to inspire the innovator in each visitor. If we do, perhaps our visitors will find renewed optimism for our world and for themselves. We will have done well if the product we ultimately produce is hope.

Tim Ritchie is president of the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California.

About the image: At the Tech Challenge 2011, young engineers attempt to design and build a device that can collect trash from the ocean without harming marine life. Photo by Don Feria

This is an extended version of an article that appeared in the September/October 2012 issue of

Science center and museum professionals from around the world share ways that they are engaging visitors in hands-on innovation.

 
In July 2012, the Exploratorium launched its Global Tinkering Studio Initiative at the Saudi Aramco Cultural Program, an annual science festival in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Informed by 10 years of educational research and development, the Tinkering Studio invited visitors to build, hack, invent, and “think with their hands” while working on individual creations that explore the natural world. As part of the festival, the Exploratorium’s master tinkerers held professional development workshops to immerse local educators in the Exploratorium’s approach to tinkering as a way of learning.

At the Exploratorium’s new home on the San Francisco waterfront in 2013, an even more expanded Tinkering Studio will be at the heart of the museum, directly across from the Machine Shop where all the museum’s exhibits are made.

Linda Dackman, public information director, Exploratorium, San Francisco

 
This spring, the Discovery Center of Idaho launched Family Science Adventures, a new program that gives visitors the space and equipment to experiment with a different theme every week. Each theme comes with three stations that are designed to give visitors a chance to explore with minimal instruction and discover, at varied depths, the science behind the theme. The program is run by volunteers who encourage experimentation rather than giving directions, so that all ages are engaged. This program brings many of our supplies and exhibits out of storage and into the hands of our visitors. We also link the program with our long-term exhibits, seasonal events, store items, and other programs.

Marci Neibaur, volunteer director, Discovery Center of Idaho, Boise

The Ingenuity Lab at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California at Berkeley, is a drop-in lab that seeks to inspire the next generation of inventors and engineers by engaging visitors of all ages in fun, hands-on engineering design challenges. The program serves 15,000 visitors annually and increases membership. It builds on the best of “tinkering” and “maker” content in science centers, but emphasizes the engineering design process and careers. Each month, the lab offers a different open-ended design challenge, providing visitors with assorted low-cost materials and reusable electronics to construct solutions through various approaches and levels of complexity. As visitors go through the stages of iterative prototyping, they work collaboratively to solve real-world challenges, guided by engineering students who volunteer their services and, in turn, increase their engineering skills. Examples are: Wind Turbines, Solar Energy, and Hydraulics. The most successful challenges in the lab have been turned into floor exhibits—hardened and scaffolded to require less facilitation.

Monika Mayer, science education specialist and manager of Ingenuity Lab, Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California at Berkeley

Iridescent, an engineering education nonprofit, recently created a free online and mobile platform of hands-on, engineering design challenges for children. The Curiosity Machine challenges children to assume the role of engineers, tinkerers, and inventors as they make their way through an online curriculum of hands-on, kid-friendly engineering design projects. The projects use low-cost, easy to find materials. Through an interactive website and corresponding mobile phone apps, children can see videos for experiments and design projects, watch videos with prominent scientists discussing their research, build projects and submit videos and photographs of the process and results, receive feedback and reviews from professional volunteer engineers, earn badges and rewards as they master skills, and set up profiles so they can continue building and learning at home. The Curiosity Machine can be set up as a station at any science center or museum—all that’s needed are some computers and a table of supplies.

Dara Olmsted, ethnographer, formative evaluator and grantwriter, Iridescent, Los Angeles, California

Conner Prairie Interactive History Park will be celebrating the spirit of innovation in science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (STEAM) during its first-ever STEAM! Innovation Week, to be held September 12–16, 2012. The week will feature innovations of the past, present, and future across all five historic outdoor areas of the park and culminate in a STEAM-themed fair on September 15 and 16. The fair will feature the region’s top scientists, artisans, and inventors as they demonstrate their creations. Visitors can test their own skills through hands-on activities and do-it-yourself exhibits. Families and children can also experience an interactive, innovation playground that will feature innovations in robotics, electronics, and the life sciences.

Lynelle Mellady, public relations manager, Conner Prairie Interactive History Park, Fishers, Indiana

Open Exhibits is a (U.S.) National Science Foundation–funded initiative that looks to transform the way in which museums and other informal learning institutions produce and share computer-based exhibits. Open Exhibits is both a collection of software and a growing community of practice.

Open Exhibits has close to a dozen free software components, and just recently we added an Arduino software module. This module allows exhibit developers to quickly and easily develop applications that can take advantage of push buttons, lights, camera controls, sensors, and all of the interface and peripheral devices that Arduino supports. It can be used with existing Open Exhibits software components to rapidly create new exhibits.

An example application that uses a mechanical dial, a flip switch, and RFID (radio frequency identification) tags is available along with the source code, video demonstration, and documentation. Visit the Open Exhibits site to learn more.

Jim Spadaccini, founder/CEO, creative director, Ideum, Corrales, New Mexico

Ingenuity makes us human and drives our ability to solve problems. Lab technicians Tim Pula and Abigail Peltier of Discovery Place unleash the full power of collective human ingenuity every day by providing opportunities for guests to employ behaviors central to innovation. By continuously staging and switching out science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)–based activities in the public Explore More Stuff lab, Pula and Peltier afford guests of all ages the opportunity to “muck around,” tinker, collaborate, smash together, and celebrate new ideas to solve problems. This is how Discovery Place helps citizens to understand and imagine novel solutions to the most vexing STEM-based issues that society faces.

Gabor Zsuppan, ScienceReach coordinator, Discovery Place, Charlotte, North Carolina

Inspired by the Fukushima tragedy, a recent Inventors’ Challenge workshop at the Ontario Science Centre challenged students to use pneumatics and electromagnetism to build a robotic arm to prevent contamination in a nuclear plant. Time and hazard restrictions, the absence of computers, and limited electric supply were all factors that inspired collaboration and thinking outside the box. Instructions were available as needed, but only in da Vinci–style backwards script that required a mirror to read. With sweaty foreheads and busy hands, the teams managed to build, test, and use their robotic arms, and literally raised their arms to celebrate when they finally neutralized the nuclear material!

Rocio Navarro, science educator, bilingual, Ontario Science Centre, Toronto

Southeast Missouri Project Learning Experiences (SMPLE) is a partnership between Bootheel Youth Museum (BYM) and Lincoln University Cooperative Extension. AmeriCorps volunteers present BYM SMPLE traveling science and engineering programs in scout dens, community centers, church basements, outdoor carnivals, city parks, empty parking lots, summer camps, malls, state parks, school classrooms, and school gymnasiums. For example, in the low-budget, open-ended Balls and Tracks activity, teams receive a box full of materials and supplies that include foam tracks, masking tape, and marbles, and are asked to create a chaos contraption.

Patsy Reublin, executive director, Bootheel Youth Museum, Malden, Missouri

The Centre for Research and Applied Learning in Science (CRADLΣ) is a new facility at the Science Centre Singapore, launched at the beginning of 2012. Staffed by scientists and educators, CRADLΣ combines the concept of a specialized teaching lab with that of a hackerspace. Its facilities are well equipped to support student groups for science research, design, and innovation projects. A variety of workshops are offered, from modern physics experiments on metrology, to open-ended hacking sessions using the Arduino microcontroller platform and digital fabrication tools such as laser cutters and 3D printers. Another goal is to be a training and development platform for teachers who want to gain more confidence and skills in bringing hands-on science to the classroom and their school labs, and to further nurture a research and development culture with students.

Ei-Leen Tan, assistant director, Technology & Creativity Group, Science Centre Singapore

Building forts is a fundamental experience of childhood, universal across cultures, gender, and time. Much like engineers, children create structures from scratch, transforming natural and found materials into viable systems. At the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, children build forts with open-ended, repurposed materials, developing cognitive skills as they calculate loads, experiment with tension and compression, explore the structural integrity of spans, estimate the force of gravity, and create an ever-changing landscape reflecting color and artistic expression. Children use their minds, muscles, and imaginations to gain a better understanding of spatial awareness and how to move objects through space. They take risks and learn from trial and error. Whether working alone or in groups, problem-solving and negotiating skills are honed. Humming with purposeful activity, the exhibit is continually reconfigured throughout the day, guided by the wild imaginings of children at work.

Equally important, the social and emotional growth that occur during fort-building are key components of child development. Meeting their inherent drive to construct personal worlds, children create forts—worlds in which they can become themselves. Constructing meaningful worlds during childhood play fosters a sense of competency and confidence for shaping the big world tomorrow.

Nancy Stice, director of exhibits and facilities, Children’s Museum of Phoenix

In the Discovery Museums’ Inventor’s Workshop, visitors (ages 6 and older, younger with adults) tinker, invent, design, and construct innovative contraptions and imaginative sculptures with recycled materials, wood, and hand tools. The supportive environment encourages messing about, inspires out-of-the-box creations, and motivates visitors to learn new skills and techniques, from woodworking to creative folding, to make their ideas take shape. At the Woodworking table, children learn hand-tool skills from Explorers: proper grip on a hammer, safe techniques for sawing wood, and how to use hand-drills and screwdrivers. With low-tech materials, self-directed tinkering flourishes, and visitors develop the skills and confidence required to transform familiar materials into their own creations. The high impact is demonstrated by the popularity of Inventor’s Workshop with all visitors and members, long stay times, and visitors’ joy in the creative process. The creations the children proudly take home inspire further explorations at home. Woodworking requirements include trained Explorers, a workbench, vices, goggles, hammers, saws (regular and coping), hand drills, screwdrivers, C-clamps, sandpaper, pine scraps, nails, screws, and a wait list!

Denise LeBlanc, director of learning experiences, Discovery Museums, Acton, Massachusetts

In both 2010 and 2011, in recognition of America Recycles Day, Discovery Center of Springfield hosted a Build a Car gallery in which visitors were challenged to create a vehicle out of recycled materials, such as boxes, egg cartons, and oatmeal canisters. Wheels, axles, decorating resources, adhesives, rulers, and scissors were also on hand. They then used timers to test the speed of their vehicles as they traveled down a ramp. Visitors frequently worked together in family groups to construct their vehicles, and often stayed to make design revisions.

Laurie Duncan, education director, Discovery Center of Springfield, Missouri 

Design Challenges is a hands-on, drop-in engineering program that occurs daily at the Museum of Science, Boston. The program, which has served over 350,000 visitors to date, invites guests to think like engineers as they design, build, and test a prototype solution to a challenge of the day. Participants tinker and construct their designs using everyday objects such as pipe cleaners, recycled pipette trays, straws, soap dishes, pool noodles, and popsicle sticks. Each activity is designed to have multiple goals and infinite solutions and can be completed in 20 minutes or less. The program aims to have visitors recognize that engineers design and create not just cars, planes, and bridges, but also technologies we use every day like sneakers, pens, and toys. The newest design challenge, Extreme Trampolines, asks visitors to construct a mini trampoline that can make a golf ball bounce very high or very low. Using hair ties, binder clips, and fabric scraps, visitors build and test their designs in a custom drop zone that drops golf balls and measures the peak height. Descriptions of activities and teacher resources are available online.

Lydia Beall, Design Challenges program manager, Museum of Science, Boston

The Questacon Smart Moves Invention Convention is an outreach program that tours regional and remote areas of Australia and targets high school students. Through a series of increasingly challenging engineering activities, students use low- and high-tech tools—ranging from simple gears to 3D printers—in ways that improve creative thinking and problem-solving skills. The three-day workshop focuses on the innovation process and its stages. In the first stage, Developing, students brainstorm ways to use new technologies to meet societal needs. Next, in Producing, engineering challenges allow students to prototype and construct. Students are then encouraged to test their ideas as part of the Applying stage. This program provides an opportunity to inspire, energize, and prepare young people to pursue careers in technology, engineering, and manufacturing, and address the national skills shortage.

Rachel Rayner, outreach presenter, Questacon—The National Science and Technology Centre, Canberra, Australia

The Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center engages young audiences through its Spark!Lab, which shows the real story behind an inventor’s work. It uses fun activities to help kids and families learn about the history and process of invention—from a creative idea to successful marketing. Spark!Lab illustrates key steps in the process with simple “it” phrases—Think It, Explore It, Sketch It, Create It, Try It, Tweak It, Sell It—and allows visitors to explore inventions of the past and create prototypes for their own inventions. Although Spark!Lab is currently closed due to renovations at the museum, the Lemelson team is working to open Spark!Lab satellites at children’s museums and science centers around the country.

Kate Wiley, public affairs specialist, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Special thanks to Saint Louis Science Center’s Science Beyond the Boundaries network for its help with this article. For more information on the network, email Jennifer Jovanovic or stop by the GRANDSTAND booth in the Exhibit Hall at the 2012 ASTC Annual Conference.

About the image: The Exploratorium’s Global Tinkering Studio launched at the Saudi Aramco Cultural Program, an annual science festival in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in July 2012. Photo by the Tinkering Studio

We still hold our scientists in high regard for their intelligence, curiosity, and determination. But we demand better communication. After all, we may never hope to fully comprehend the science of crippling diseases or the Higgs boson, but we know that fear arises when open communication with our scientists is lost and trust is broken. Science centers and museums help communicate the relevance of science and the excitement of discovery.

And today, our global society has expanded its fascination to include the creative change makers among us: the innovators. Here, too, our science centers have an important responsibility. There are countless articles written about the five (or seven or ten) critical skills of the successful innovator. The book The Innovator’s DNA describes five so-called “discovery skills”: associating, questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting. The analysis states further that these five skills are not innate—and ironically they often come more naturally to youth and diminish with age.

In fact, most science centers and museums strive (and largely succeed) to encourage these discovery skills in myriad ways. So what is our task today? We will certainly continue our hallmark approach of inquiry, observation, networking varied perspectives on issues, and experimentation. But, let’s also acknowledge that today’s tech-savvy generation has not eliminated some of the same probing questions of my mother’s era. Are we helped or hindered, informed or invaded, freed or shackled by rapidly evolving innovations in our lives?

To these concerns, our attention to the first discovery skill—associating—can be key. This skill refers to an appreciation of the societal context into which innovation will be introduced and the ensuing implications (positive or negative, real or perceived). With this perspective in mind, innovation can be an exciting, nonthreatening prospect for the creator and for the beneficiary.

So, let’s encourage in our visitors the discovery skills that can yield the most far-reaching and novel results. Let’s also cultivate in our young creators this sense of associating. The greatest innovators succeed not because their skills and perspectives are so different from the every day, but because they comprehend the every day so deeply as to recognize the ramifications of change and create accordingly.

This interview appeared in the September/October 2012 issue of Dimensions magazine.

The Greek philosopher Plato is quoted as saying that you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. It’s a philosophy Nicole Lazzaro—president of XEODesign, Inc., the world’s first Player Experience Design consulting company—subscribes to today. Players’ emotions are at the core of gaming, says Lazzaro, and they are the reason why games can be so compelling. She chatted with Dimensions in anticipation of the 2012 ASTC Annual Conference this October in Columbus, Ohio, where she’ll share how science centers and museums can implement the power of play.

Read the full transcript, or listen to the podcast.