This interview appeared in the May/June 2012 issue of Dimensions magazine.

Transmedia, or storytelling across multiple platforms, is the biggest trend in media today, according to Jennifer Stancil—which would make her a trendsetter. Before signing on as executive director of education at the Pittsburgh public television station WQED in 2010, Stancil had already experimented with an array of media over nearly 15 years in the museum field, including five years as executive director of the Girls, Math & Science Partnership at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center. Her goal: to engage youth, especially girls, with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Here, Stancil discusses media’s fast-paced path and how museums and science centers can keep up to speed.

Read the full transcript, or listen to the podcast.

Photo by Sharon Ellman

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

There are more ways in which a science center can be seen to be advocating a position than by just saying it outright. If you call yourself a science center, for example, your audience is likely to draw a conclusion as to where you stand in the evolution/creationism debate. The International Centre for Life leases space to a cutting-edge stem cell research lab, and however much we may hold debates on the ethics of stem cell research, by doing this we are clearly implicit supporters of the research

Ian Simmons, science communication director, International Centre for Life, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom

Yes, science centers should advocate for reality- and fact-based approaches and positions on political and controversial issues. ASTC-affiliated institutions are expected by the public they serve not to cave in to ideology, political correctness, and wishful thinking. They should develop experiential-based education and awareness activities and exhibits that get at the scientific questions underlying political and controversial issues. They need to encourage questioning and to have staff/volunteers with the interests and resources to objectively address those questions.

Joe Andrade, director, Visual Values, and science advisor, the Leonardo, Salt Lake City, Utah

Taking a position is appropriate when it is based on the preponderance of scientific evidence, and the issue is framed in sensitive ways that respond to and respect different perspectives. Effective advocacy acknowledges that information by itself does not change a person’s mind but may instead reinforce an existing point of view.

David Ucko, president, Museums + more, Washington, D.C.

Scientific facts are often the missing component in political discussions on a whole range of topics from pollution to population growth. Museums and science centers should never shy away from presenting the facts out of “political” concerns. We serve the public, not the corporations or politicians we might obtain funding from.

Erich Rose, owner, Erich Rose Design, Austin, Texas

Advocacy is a tough one. On one side, no one wants to be preached at when they’re digesting the evidence. Conversely, some issues seem so important and the evidence so clear that you’re a fool to hold your tongue. Generally, it’s best to err on the side of evidence and allow for human judgment to take its course.

Charlie Carlson, senior scientist, Exploratorium, San Francisco

As advocates of change to suboptimal status quos, it is incumbent on all science center and museum personnel to voice their stance on tough issues. Not doing so is anathema to our values as thoughtful, literate, and vibrant members of the Illuminati. Every voice enriches dialogue, cogent dissenters and debaters alike. In this light, every voice matters and every voice increases the conversation’s worth. To remain mum on controversial or sensitive political topics is irresponsible. Even more, it’s a hypocritical digression from the very nature of free thinking, creativity, and empiricism we so ardently engender our visitors and students to undertake and contemplate throughout their lives. Accordingly, we must speak up in support of, or disagreement with, issues of import.

Christopher Wirkkala, placement manager, NRG! Exhibits, Kirkland, Washington

When we talk about the theory of evolution to our audiences, we are relaying an overwhelming scientific consensus that has resulted from some 200 years of observation, research, and the rigors of the scientific method. We come to the public with the science and, through our collections and exhibitions, show the evidence that supports our conclusions—the science behind the theory. By telling and showing the public how the world works, we describe and give evidence for evolution.

Today, informal science education (ISE) providers find themselves with an increasingly difficult challenge. For many of the compelling issues that society is facing today—particularly with regard to energy transitions—we don’t have the scientific research and therefore consensus needed to tell us how much of it “works.” As a result, our responsibility to the public is to say, “This is the Earth science behind the issue, but there are many things that we don’t yet understand or have the data for.” Much of the research that would shed light on the ramifications of the processes is yet to be done, so we can’t deliver all the scientific facts that might help the public make educated decisions. In fact, we wind up having to tell them that the situation is much more complicated than they imagine.

All the ways of procuring energy that we have in place right now are not sustainable. None are “good” in a carbon footprint sense. So, the second most difficult thing about education and outreach on energy transitions is the bottom line: We, as a species, have to reduce our energy consumption by, depending on which method of calculation one uses, 60–80%—or reduce our population by roughly the same—if we are to mediate climate change and reach a point where we might live sustainably. That is the issue, and it’s a tough fact to swallow for most.

This is not what the public wants to hear. They want to know, black or white, “Which energy source should we use? Which is best?” They want science to tell them what to do. As an industry, ISE providers need to keep in mind that science tells us how the world works; it does not tell us what society should do.

Truly, the most positive (and, we would argue, the most effective) action ISE providers can take is to be the facilitators within our communities—to educate the public on the science behind the issues, and foster civil discourse about these topics. Natural history museums (and science centers, nature centers, and other ISE providers) are the perfect venues to host these types of discussions with the public because (1) many venues have scientists on staff who are involved in doing the research that can shed light on the issues; (2) we have the collections to show empirical evidence; (3) we have venues across the nation—in rural, suburban, and urban settings—to host such conversations and offer educational programming; (4) we have staff that are particularly trained to communicate science to the public; and (5) we have the integrity amongst our public that we are the experts in the field on Earth science issues. These larger discussions also open the door to discussions of the nature of science, thereby increasing our visitors’ understanding of science as a process and, as a result, empowering them to more critically evaluate situations and make evidence-based conclusions and decisions.

Within communities of many opinions, ISE providers have the opportunity to be the rational place for the public to learn and consider the facts available, to promote civil discourse about the ramifications of the options based on the available data, and to be clear on what information is still needed. As ISE providers, we can—and do—facilitate an understanding of how the world works so the public can make informed decisions. Being a good facilitator is no easy job. However, as we venture into the 21st century and face the issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other challenges to our species, few others are as equally suited to carry out this much-needed outreach. And, if we don’t, who will?

Carlyn S. Buckler, senior education associate, and Richard A. Kissel, director of teacher programs, Paleontological Research Institution and its Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, New York

From our Facebook page:

I think the real question is whether we should do so deliberately rather than passively, or by default.

Alexander Zwissler, executive director/CEO, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, California

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

About the image: Stem cell work at Newcastle University’s Institute of Genetic Medicine, which leases space from the International Centre for Life. Photo courtesy Centre for Life/Newcastle University

In order to meet the challenges of the future, we must build a workforce that is skilled and knowledgeable in science, technology, engineering, and math. But a basic understanding of these subjects is not enough; we also need to cultivate creative thinking and innovation. Exploring the intersections between art and science can promote critical thinking, creativity, and imagination, while encouraging public engagement with science. In this issue, science and art museum professionals, artists, and other practitioners share examples of successful creative collaborations, as well as practical advice for navigating the crossroads between science and art.

Contents

• Desperately Seeking Innovation: Making Connections Between Art and Science, by Robert Stein
• The Common Ground of Art and Science Explorations, by Bernie Zubrowski
• Science Gallery: Creative Collisions of Art and Science, by Michael John Gorman
• Arts Inspired by Medical Science, by Meroë Candy
• An Art and Science Gallery
• Art: An Arc of Inquiry, by JD Talasek
• Bringing Art and Science Together, by Suzanne McCaffrey and Angela Seals
• The Confluence of Art, Science, and Nature, by Ned Kahn

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The explosive cocktail of art and science has been with us for millennia. We have long had individual practitioners—from Pythagoras to Steve Jobs—who defied disciplinary boundaries, but I personally think there is something very exciting going on now that makes art-science in the 21st century different. What seems to be emerging is a new generation of physical environments dedicated to nurturing “intersectionism.”

Since 2007, a number of these environments have opened around the world—including Le Laboratoire, Paris; the Art|Sci Center, Los Angeles; and Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona. While these spaces each have their own distinct emphases, they are all examples of an emerging kind of cultural space, where science interacts with the arts and design in a conversational environment. There are, of course, earlier examples of spaces that have celebrated the intersection between art and science, including the Exploratorium, San Francisco, but the proliferation of hybrid spaces and approaches to bridging art and science in the past five years is remarkable.

So why is this emergence happening right now? I think the key reason is the crisis in specialization in our educational and cultural institutions catalyzed by the technological revolution since the 1990s. Whereas previous science centers were founded on the concept that we require more scientists, the new art-science centers and projects tend to spring from the idea of nurturing a new kind of person—an artscientist—able to move across disciplinary boundaries with agility. The mission of these spaces seems to be about stimulating creative collisions rather than “instructing” the public about particular areas of science.

Science Gallery

Let me try to make this a bit more concrete by sharing some stories about the space we have established at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Science Gallery, which opened in February 2008, began with a group of Trinity College Dublin scientists who wanted to create a center for excellence in nanotechnology. They thought that the building should also include a new way of engaging the public with emerging science and technology.

We looked hard at how we might do this. The space was quite small, so the possibility of creating an Exploratorium-style science center was out of the question. On the upside, we had a fantastic city center location, with a giant shop window onto one of Dublin’s busiest streets. We decided we had a unique opportunity to make the membrane between a major research university and the city more porous.

Science Gallery would not be a place to receive instruction about science dressed up as “fun,” but a “particle accelerator for people” from different backgrounds and perspectives to bounce off each other in creative collisions. Emboldened by the experiments beginning elsewhere in the world, we saw the dialogue between art and science as shorthand for a broader cultural exchange between the world of research and the city.

Some university scientists were highly skeptical about the concept of “a place where ideas meet.” We were very fortunate to have the support of an enlightened university president who insisted that bringing science and the arts into dialogue was critical, and allowed us to experiment with new models for public engagement.

We developed a very open, collaborative approach to interdisciplinary conversation. We select an extremely broad theme (like “light” or “fear”) and issue an open call for project ideas from scientists, designers, artists, and engineers in the community. An interdisciplinary group of curators reviews the proposals and invites a selection of applicants to develop their projects for implementation in the gallery. The advantage of the open call process is that it attracts a very wide (and unpredictable) range of project ideas, and proposers of projects are usually very enthusiastic, frequently giving their time to events in addition to their specific installation or exhibit.

Infectious ideas

Our INFECTIOUS project is a good example of what Science Gallery is all about. We were approached by two leading Trinity College immunologists with the idea of doing a show on the theme of Plague. We said, “Hmm, interesting idea, but sounds a bit…negative.” After brainstorming for a while, we thought: What about calling it INFECTIOUS, and considering everything from viral marketing to contagious laughter, as well as pandemics? We ended up opening the show—which contained a simulation using RFID tags, where visitors could “infect” each other electronically—in April 2009, just days before news of the H1N1 flu broke! Some people even blamed us in the media for starting the pandemic as a public relations stunt.

We had artists, immunologists, epidemiologists, designers, musicians, economists, and even comedians all engaging with contagion, the spread of ideas, jokes, financial panics, and fashion trends. The lead scientist in the project eventually published a three-page interview with an artist in Nature Immunology, a completely unprecedented move on the part of the journal.

Success and challenges

So what have we learned? Well, over the past few years we have identified some practices that seem to work:
• Establishing broad interdisciplinary themes that naturally bring scientists and artists into conversation
• Using open calls to source ideas from the community
• Shifting from being a content provider to being a creative platform
• Having artists and scientists in the gallery, willing to talk to visitors.

We have also identified some key challenges:
• Balancing a strong brand with an ethos of openness
• Addressing the concerns of some scientists who think the blend of art and science is too “fluffy” and would prefer to see more “hard science” presented in a didactic fashion
• Accepting the fact that traditional, tightly controlled exhibition narratives are impossible in this model
• Managing the workload created by rapid turnover of events and exhibitions
• Having sufficient resources for face-to face interactions and conversations.

Looking ahead

Science Gallery’s next goal is to stimulate and support the development of a global network of galleries drawing from the lessons of the Dublin model, in partnership with leading universities in urban centers. The network will enable the sharing of ideas, experiments, and touring exhibitions, drawing on the unique artistic and scientific communities present in each city. In December 2011, Science Gallery was awarded €1 million (USD 1.3 million) by Google to support the development of the Global Science Gallery Network, which will be launched in July when Dublin is a City of Science and host of the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) conference. Ultimately, a key challenge for the new generation of hybrid spaces, including Science Gallery, is how they can move from being boutique experimental spaces to  “infecting” mainstream formal education with new approaches. Science Gallery is currently developing a Learning Lab to support formal education in Ireland in integrating art and science.

Michael John Gorman is founding director of Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

About the image: Model Sophie Merry is pictured at HYPERBOLIC CROCHET CORAL REEF, an exhibition created and curated by Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring in Los Angeles. Photo by Patrick Bolger

This is an extended version of an article that appeared in the March/April 2012 issue of

Science center and museum professionals, artists, and educators from around the world share their projects, programs, exhibitions, and initiatives that combine science and art.

In our new Art of Science Gallery, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University creates four changing exhibitions each year showcasing rarely seen treasures from our own collections, works by contemporary artists, and imagery generated by Academy scientists, both past and present. Upcoming in 2012 are photographs of Academy collections by noted photographer Rosamond Purcell and photographs from VIREO, the Academy’s bird image collection.

Carolyn Belardo, senior communications manager, Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia

Sisyphus is the name of a series of kinetic sculptures that I’ve been creating since 1997. A steel ball rolls through a field of sand, leaving highly detailed dune patterns in its wake. Below the sand field lies a robotic mechanism that moves a magnet precisely, under computer control. After each path is laboriously crafted, it is destroyed and the process begins anew. Sisyphus III was permanently installed at Technorama, Winterthur, Switzerland, in 2003, and continues its “toil” on the 10-foot (3-meter) diameter field to this day. I just returned from Wolfsburg, Germany, after installing a light-weight, traveling version for a nine-month stay at Phaeno.

Artist Bruce Shapiro

Bijoux: The Origins and Impact of Jewelry, an exhibition developed by the Bruce Museum of Art and Science, explores the wide range of materials used to make jewelry, from bones and fossils to diamonds and moissanite. Visually enticing as well as intellectually stimulating, jewelry makes for a perfect vehicle to convey the relationship of our everyday lives with science, geography, history, and economics. Bijoux presents the complexities of jewelry making, from Earth’s processes to human ingenuity.

Gina Gould, curator of science, Bruce Museum of Art and Science, Greenwich, Connecticut

Many of the opportunities of the future will be found in the application of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), but without imagination and creativity, we will merely repeat the mistakes of the past. Ignition* is a flagship program of the nonprofit organization Ignite!, which promotes creativity in learning. Over three years, the program has worked with more than 23,000 young people to encourage their enthusiasm for STEM subjects through activities including an Invention competition and SciArt film premieres. Ignition* has worked with museums and science centers including the Natural History and Science Museums in London, and the Snibston Discovery Center in Leicestershire.

Rick Hall and Amy Turner, Ignite!, Nottingham, England, United Kingdom

Art and science collide in a new free monthly lecture series at the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences of West Virginia, featuring professors from a variety of art- and science-related fields. The series launched in January with a lecture by Stanford University’s Gail Wight about the influence of science on her artwork. Other topics include the physical manifestation of creativity in the brain and the influence of environmental journalism on visual arts. The series runs through July.

LeAnn Dickens, public relations specialist, Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences of West Virginia, Charleston

The Museum of Arts & Sciences (MOAS) annual Summer Learning Institute combines art, science, and history. Classes range in topics from marine biology and art history to physics and paleontology. One such class, Terrors of the Deep, brought to life carnivorous animals from prehistoric to modern times. The highlight was the made-to-scale, mixed media sculpture of Architeuthis, or giant squid. The chicken wire-framed cephalopod was completed with foam, thick gauge wires, and paper mache by the 10- to 12-year-old students.

Rene Bell Adams, director of communications, Museum of Arts & Science, Daytona Beach, Florida

Families explore scientific clues at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to discover how ancient Chinese artists painted the famous Terra Cotta Warriors. In one area of the museum’s National Geographic Treasures of the Earth exhibition, visitors use a magnifying lens to examine a (faux) shard from a Terra Cotta Warrior for traces of paint. Just like the real conservation team, families match the minerals to paint colors (such as matching malachite to green and cinnabar to red) and then virtually repaint a warrior based on their analysis.

Kimberly Harms, director of public & media relations, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts highlights arts, education, entertainment, and cultural enrichment. The center features live concerts, theater and dance performances, and Hollywood blockbusters on an IMAX screen, as well as three floors of interactive, hands-on science exhibits.

Nicole Newkam, public relations manager, Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Artworks have been central to the visitor experience at Phaeno from the outset. The artist’s unique grasp of scientific ideas gives us instant understanding. We enjoy the sheer beauty of Ned Kahn’s Seismic Sand, revealing changing landscapes in a drum beat. We experience the narrowing Toposonic Tunnel, complemented by Phaeno’s unique architecture. As we leave the science center, The Ring, an impressive installation by sound artist Trimpin, creates harmonies above us.

Wolfgang Guthardt, director, Phaeno, Wolfsburg, Germany

ReGeneration will be a new art/science exhibition at the New York Hall of Science, open from October 2012 through January 2013. The exhibition will explore the themes of community and sustainability through the newly commissioned work of 15 international artists. Many of the works will be co-created with community members. For example, Biomodd by Belgian artist Angelo Vermeulen is an art project in which community members build computer systems with living ecosystems inside of them.

Eric Siegel, director and chief content officer, New York Hall of Science, Queens

For a wide variety of reasons, getting to a museum is not easy for everyone in Monterrey, Mexico. Planetario Alfa offers children the museum experience in their own schools through Ciencia Móvil (Mobile Science), an educational program that recreates the museum’s activities and demonstrations. Children then participate in dynamic workshops in which they reinforce the information seen in the demonstrations while creating artistic projects related to physics, chemistry, and astronomy. The program promotes creativity, cooperation, and interaction among students, teachers, and museum facilitators.

Blanca Puente, Education Department, Planetario Alfa, Monterrey, Mexico

Can you engage audiences with a science show with no words? Yes, if you are the Visualise team from science made simple. Visualise is a spectacle involving physical theater, live science demonstrations, projected images, clowning, and music. Using ordinary objects in extraordinary ways, the performance invites the audience to make their own observations and discoveries. Developed and performed by former staff from Techniquest in Cardiff, Wales, Visualise has been performed in 15 countries, including in many science centers and museums.

Gareth Smith, science made simple ltd., School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom

The Anatomy in the Gallery program at the International Museum of Surgical Science has showcased rotating exhibitions of medically inspired contemporary art since 1998. Quarterly pairs of exhibitions feature artwork in traditional and new media that focuses on issues of embodiment, perspectives on medical practice, and the visual culture of medicine. The museum’s historical artifacts and educational exhibits provide a rich context for the art exhibitions, while the artwork adds another layer of experience for visitors, encouraging reflection on the nature of medicine and the human condition.

Lindsey Thieman, manager of exhibits and programs, International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago

At the turn of the 19th century, physicist Ernst Chladni found that when he took a violin bow to a thin piece of metal covered in sand, the granules arranged themselves in beautiful, geometric patterns according to places of stillness and vibration. Last year, Exploratorium Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Meara O’Reilly discovered that with carefully sung notes and a transducer driving a similar plate, she was able to explore those same resonances. When she handed a microphone to museum visitors, she found that even untrained singers can make exquisite patterns in the sand. O’Reilly is currently working with our exhibit developers to transform her experiments into our next AIR exhibit.

Stacy Martin, public information assistant, Exploratorium, San Francisco

The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (CMNH) has always offered a mix of art, science, culture, and history. Recently, we have focused on blending perspectives. This approach is captured in our new Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) Coordinator position, and in the creation of new maker spaces and other blended visitor experiences. For example, the Studio focuses on creative thinking and open-ended exploration; visitors use featured materials to create their own take-home projects and investigate the central motif—light, air, water, seeds, costumes, or color—using scientific tools and equipment. Thinkering Lab is an engineering and design studio that encourages visitors to ask questions, design and implement ways to test possible answers, and then evaluate their findings. Gallery 6 is a professional art gallery showcasing regional work.

This approach is about best practices for us. Looking at an issue from multiple points of view encourages more complexity and subtlety. We believe that being interdisciplinary helps visitors build more flexible understandings that are useful in their day-to-day lives. But, specifically as a museum, we want each visitor to experience success, whatever their learning style, skill set, interests, or age. Being interdisciplinary also makes it more possible for families to explore together, which research tells us is central to deepening informal learning outcomes.

Justine Roberts, executive director, Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, Dover

Last year, the Louisville Science Center experimented with a new hands-on festival combining art and science. The Great Big Science To-Do consisted of three month-long, internally designed exhibitions. October’s Colorama allowed visitors to paint with magnets, texture stamp, and paint Frisbees using centrifugal motion. At November’s Weatherblast, which explored how weather affects us, visitors created their own suncatchers using baby oil and construction paper. Reuseapalooza, held in December, promoted repurposing and recycling old objects as visitors made holiday ornaments and gift tags from recycled materials.

Mark Sieckman, manager of executive initiatives, Louisville Science Center, Kentucky

As we were designing ArtScience Museum, which opened in Singapore in February 2011, we decided to look at the creative process. In both art and science, an idea begins with a spark and evolves from there. We looked at the inspiration of art-scientists like Leonardo da Vinci and Lu Ban, and found that they typically went back to nature. For example, da Vinci’s drawings of flying machines were inspired by his observations of bat wings. The museum’s three galleries—Curiosity, Inspiration, and Expression—invite visitors to explore these connections between art and science.

Tom Zaller, president, Imagine Exhibitions, and founding director, ArtScience Museum, Singapore

House of Music is a modern interactive sound museum located in the historic city center. Six floors are dedicated to the presentation of the fascinating world of music and sound. Music becomes audible and visible in real and virtual rooms. Visitors engage in interactive play with music, learn about the history of music, experience unexpected sounds, and encounter music from aesthetic, scientific, popular, and artistic perspectives.

Helmut Lenhardt, marketing and public relations, House of Music, Vienna, Austria

Art2STEM—which approaches STEM through the vehicle of art and design—is changing middle school girls’ minds about careers in the sciences. After experiencing the program, many girls who previously had no interest in STEM careers choose to enroll in Nashville’s STEM academies in ninth grade. Adventure Science Center works with local nonprofits, businesses, universities, volunteer mentors, and the public school system to deliver project-based science and engineering activities followed by field excursions to local businesses and a week-long summer camp. The program has served more than 400 girls to date.

Jeri Hasselbring, director of education, Adventure Science Center, Nashville, Tennessee

As part of its opening, the Durango Discovery Museum instituted StudioLab, an “art + science” collaborative program. Every year, from May to August, an artist-scientist team works on a project at the museum. The selected artist-scientist team receives a $500 honorarium at the end of the project. In year one, artist Miki Harder worked with Jonathan Wolfe, executive director of the Fractal Foundation, on an inquiry into fractals. This past summer, photographer Paul Pennington and partners engaged the public in a variety of optics and camera obscura projects.

Haz Said, director of marketing, communications, and visitor experience, Durango Discovery Museum, Durango, Colorado

About the image: Lady Bug Lovers by Charley Harper was exhibited in the Art of Science Gallery at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia. Photo courtesy Virginia Living Museum

This interview appeared in the March/April 2012 issue of Dimensions magazine.

Picture a steaming air hockey puck spinning in a circle while floating in midair. This strange vision resembles a phenomenon demonstrated by Tel Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group at the 2011 ASTC Annual Conference in Baltimore last October. The “floating puck” was in fact a crystal wafer coated with a thin layer of ceramic material and cooled to -301˚ F (-185˚ C). At that point it becomes a superconductor, conducting electricity without resistance or energy loss—unlike the copper wires often used in electrical devices, which inefficiently cast off some electricity as it flows through.

Although superconductivity was discovered a century ago by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, the researchers at Tel Aviv University were the first to create a thin superconductor using high-quality materials. They also discovered that the improved features of this new applied superconductor enabled it to levitate.

The result, called quantum levitation, looks like a scene in a futuristic film, perhaps explaining why a video of the demonstration went viral, earning 5 million views within a week. Tel Aviv University physicist Boaz Almog, who is heard explaining the phenomenon in the video, talked with Dimensions about superconductivity’s past, present, and future.

Read the full transcript, or listen to the podcast.

About the image: Members of Tel Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group (from left to right: Guy Deutscher, Barak Deutscher, Mishael Azoulay, and Boaz Almog) demonstrate quantum levitation. Photo courtesy Boaz Almog

This discussion was originally published in the Viewpoints department of the March/April 2012 of

Along with traditional measures of financial performance and customer satisfaction, a successful science center needs to show how it achieves its mission of engaging the public in science and technology. An innovative approach would be to convert evaluation studies into measures that account for the quality of the visitor learning experience, and to include these measures in the museum’s organizational scorecard.

Chantal Barriault, co-director of science communication and senior scientist, research and evaluation, Science North, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

We have recently developed a logic model based on a 21st-century skills framework (PDF, 2.15 MB, see page 3), which we are now using to inform and evaluate all of our exhibits and programs. We can better assess how engaged visitors are with the content, so that we’re not just measuring our success by how many people we served, or whether they went away knowing a single fact. Instead, we try to find out if our visitors have increased critical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills that they can take with them and apply to other situations.

Erika C. Shugart, deputy director, Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

A science center’s success should be measured by its impact on people, on the community where it exists, and on the economic status of its community. Its overall success should be anchored to its achievement in the development and/or promotion of science culture.

Dexter Bautista, science research specialist, National Academy of Science and Technology, Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines

When I was with the Austin Children’s Museum, we looked at repeat visitorship as a measure of success. For many years, the museum measured each year by total attendance and number of memberships. These are the two big numbers most museums would strive to grow. To achieve this, we tried to create an environment, exhibits, and programs that made folks want to come back again and often.

Erich Rose, Erich Rose Design, Austin, Texas

In the end, the measure of success has to be about learning—broadly defined to encompass both cognitive and noncognitive outcomes, such as engagement, interest, attitudes, behaviors, and skills. We need researchers and evaluators to continue to improve the means to capture these often elusive impacts.

David Ucko, president, Museums + more, Washington, D.C.

Exhibitions are perhaps the most quintessential and exciting element of science centers’ work. In this issue of Dimensions, we examine the exhibition philosophies of various institutions, as well as the design principles that lead to great exhibition experiences. In addition, we explore the advantages of tinkering and prototyping in house, the benefits and drawbacks of hosting a major blockbuster, the importance of community in the exhibit development process, and creative ways to extend the exhibition experience post-visit. We hope some of the questions and ideas raised here will form the basis of a future ASTC Community of Practice on exhibits.

Contents

• Designing Exhibits for the Experience, by Robert L. Russell
• Creating ExhibitFiles, by Wendy Pollock and Kathleen McLean
• On Growth and Form: Patterns in the Evolution of Exhibits, by Stuart Kohlhagen
• Internal Capacity: Making a Good Museum Great, by Paul Orselli
• Shared Creativity in Exhibit Development, by Betsy Adamson
• Seven Commandments of an Experience Design Company, by Esther Hamstra
• What Is Your Institution’s Exhibition Philosophy?
• Explore More: Extending the Visitor Experience, by Dan Bird
• A Commentary on Blockbuster Traveling Exhibitions, by Robert (Mac) West

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When I think about the most enjoyable and memorable places—truly great museums—that I’ve visited over a lifetime of avid museum-going, the ones that bubble to the top include the City Museum, St. Louis; the  Exploratorium, San Francisco; the Minnesota History Center, St. Paul; and the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. When I think about the traits such a disparate group of institutions might have in common, I keep coming back to one thing: internal capacity.

By “internal capacity” I mean a museum’s ability to handle core functions like exhibit development, design, and fabrication with its own resources (human and otherwise). Not so long ago, this type of internal capacity was standard operating procedure for museums: “People visit us to see exhibits, and we make the exhibits they come to see.” Today, this notion of internal capacity, especially as it relates to exhibits, seems to be less common. New museums often open without any exhibits workshop space or staff, and more established museums are whittling their exhibits department to a skeleton crew, or in the worst cases, to nothing.

You may think it odd that as a consultant who creates exhibits for museums, I promote internal capacity as an integral part of a great museum’s function. But for the majority of the more than 30 years I’ve been in the museum field, I’ve worked as director of exhibits at several fine institutions, so I’m very sensitive to the internal needs of museums, especially smaller museums. Now, some of my favorite consulting clients are museums that want to create or expand their internal capacity. I really believe that internal capacity matters both for individual museums and for the broader museum field for several reasons.

Solving problems with stuff

Museums with strong internal capacity have an exhibits workshop and they test ideas. Creative ideas and exhibit solutions can’t just be switched on or off during a meeting or conference call. Having access to exhibit materials and a place to “mess around” with them is an essential part of exhibit making. Inspiration can strike at any moment, and there is no substitute for being able to test ideas right away by traveling a few feet from your workshop to your galleries.

If you don’t currently have an exhibits workshop, carve out some backstage space (even if it means adding a wall in an exhibit gallery) to keep some simple tools and a work surface. If you’re starting a new museum, don’t let an architect or space planner talk you into minimizing the size of this essential area! Having some “creative space” for noodling around with ideas will increase your capacity to solve your exhibit design challenges.

Having an exhibits workshop goes hand in hand with the notion of testing. Whether you call it prototyping or getting visitor feedback, there is no more effective means of determining whether your ideas “work” with your audience than by putting physical components into their hands and finding out what they do with them.

Change isn’t just good, it’s essential

Exhibit components, especially the interactive exhibits found in science centers, need to change over time. You might need to switch out a handle, rewrite a label, or update an entire suite of devices. If the people and tools that created your exhibits are inside your museum, modifying such things becomes much easier.

The complexity of making changes to exhibits increases dramatically, and the likelihood of the changes occurring at all decreases proportionately, with your creative partners’ distance from your museum’s front door. If you are still building your internal capacity, consider working with partners, designers, and fabricators in your local community so that you can easily visit them during the entire exhibit development process.

A museum exhibit monoculture?

An increasing trend is to “outsource” exhibit design, development, and fabrication to outside firms or to a small set of larger museums. There are certainly times when you may need to outsource an exhibit project. However, if the majority, or entirety, of your exhibit development and implementation happens outside your institution, you may be reducing the diversity of approaches to exhibits in the entire museum field. Every exhibits company and exhibit-creating museum has its own style (just like an author has a writing style), and the museum business becomes more diverse and stronger by sharing and learning from all these different approaches to creating exhibits.

Outsourcing all your exhibits also has the downside of your museum losing a valuable source of staff development. What are the folks in your exhibits department doing if they’re not learning new ways to create exhibits for your institution? If the answer is that they’re fixing exhibits, I say you have a maintenance department, not an exhibits department. While maintaining your exhibits is an important part of the process, it’s not the same as developing and building exhibits.

By now you may be thinking, “Internal capacity sure sounds like a great idea, but can we really do everything ourselves? Aren’t there times we should bring in outside people?” When creating exhibits, there are certainly many opportunities to work with outside people, whether local community members or consultants from within the museum field. But even these opportunities should be viewed as ways to help build internal capacity. For example, if you need to expand your museum’s internal expertise in exhibit evaluation or in learning new exhibit technologies, try to enlist an outside creative partner who is willing to share skills and help build your  institution’s knowledge base.

An old adage says, “Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach someone to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.” In the same way, you should constantly be on the lookout for ways to increase your institution’s internal capacity, not just for the length of a consultant visit or the run of a grant project, but for the long-term future of your staff and museum.

Paul Orselli is president and chief instigator at Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) in Baldwin, New York.

About the image: A backstage shot of the parts, materials, and projects in progress in the exhibit workshop at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Photo by Paul Orselli

This is an extended version of an article that appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of

We map our audience’s attitudes, knowledge base, and expectations—not in order to meet those expectations, but rather to overcome them, to surprise our visitors, and to create the aha! of the Heureka experience. More than designing objects, we design the actions and interactions of the audience. This is closer to dramaturgy than playwriting. As on a stage, we direct the spotlights to bring up details that will illuminate parts of the whole and wake up the curiosity of the visitor. The visitors will always have the leading roles in this play; leaving their personal trace in the exhibition will make it their story.
Mikko Myllykoski, experience director, Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre, Vantaa

At the heart of our exhibits are stories that connect visitors to nature in personally meaningful ways. We are place based, meaning all stories begin and end in the Adirondack region. Within this larger story, we search for surprising solutions that whisper to visitors, “Come here—let me show you something cool,” then move them to explore, and leave them ready to be amazed by the wild places right outside our doors. To achieve this, we create multiple levels of entry and connection for visitors by weaving stories, poetry, meanings, and ideas into vibrant sensory experiences designed in an original voice that feels different every time visitors encounter it.
Stephanie Ratcliffe, executive director, The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, New York

Our educational goal is to create curious, confident, and collaborative learners who are empowered to use science in shaping a better future. We strive to attain this goal through both our onsite and traveling exhibitions, by designing and constructing exhibits that are: (1) inviting and fun—to invoke curiosity, (2) fully interactive and open-ended—to inspire confidence, (3) engaging for multiple individuals—to promote collaboration, and (4) scientifically accurate and relevant—to empower individuals to value and apply science to improve environmental, societal, and economic sustainability.
Tim Scott, director of exhibits, Sciencenter, Ithaca, New York

We are using RFID identification and server technology to:
• Enhance the experience: Visitors feel, “I am a part of this experience and I can add my opinions to it.”
• Extend the experience: Visitors continue the learning process at home or in school.
• Share the experience: Visitors have the opportunity to express themselves and be heard in the science center and outside on social media.
Bjørn Winther Johansen, CEO, INSPIRIA Science Center, Grålum, Norway

Our exhibits are generally small-scale with transactive qualities, enabling both the exhibits and their users to change in unexpected ways. We try to make exhibits accessible to everyone regardless of their economic status, schooling, ethnicity, age, physiology, home language, or personal history. For that reason, we base our exhibits on fundamental human experiences, such as moving air or gravity. We put people’s learning in their own hands. Exhibits are materials-rich, and offer multiple outcomes depending on a visitor’s chosen investigation. Exhibit activities reside in comfortable, semi-private spaces that encourage focus and conversation. Materials, staff, and exhibit environment all work together to support visitor learning.
Betsy Adamson, exhibits and operations director, Explora, Albuquerque, New Mexico

We encourage an interest in and curiosity about the physical and natural worlds by giving visitors the opportunity to become engaged with real objects and real phenomena. We value direct experiences, particularly those involving a kinesthetic connection to a phenomenon, the ability to observe a live creature, or an experience that allows a visitor to make a connection to the world outside. Our most successful exhibits are less about imparting information and more about creating opportunities for rich and memorable interactions and conversations.
Bob Raiselis, exhibits director, Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, Vermont

Our vision for our exhibitions centers not on the exhibits, but rather on those who use them. We provide experiences that encourage visitors to freely frame their own questions and to organize the exhibitions in their own ways. The act of organizing sometimes prompts a personalized understanding and encourages further inquiry. Our exhibitions succeed when they help our visitors understand their world better, or even when visitors simply have fun in a place filled with scripted bits of scientific wonder. And what of the phenomena themselves? Most must be seen, touched, heard, or even smelled to be understood. Otherwise, why would we need exhibits at all?
Wolfgang Guthardt, director, Phaeno, Wolfsburg, Germany

When we design an exhibition, we ask ourselves: Is each exhibit authentic? Interactive? Explorative? Transparent? Can a variety of visitors access the content in different ways over multiple experiences? We value creativity and authenticity. We develop our exhibitions in-house because this creative collaboration inspires our staff, volunteers, and board, and infuses our entire organization with ingenuity. Our exhibitions engage visitors with natural phenomena, making science more perceptible and intriguing. To facilitate accurate observations of those phenomena by visitors, we provide genuine materials rather than models and we make evident the inner workings of all of our exhibits.
Karen Miel, director of research and innovation, CuriOdyssey, San Mateo, California

Our exhibitions have their starting point in the technology and design of the real world and include industrial machinery both in full and model scale. The approach in the exhibitions is holistic, creating wholeness and context and engaging all the senses. This concerns the exhibits themselves, the setting, the stage design, and the “spaces in between.” The reality-based concept of our exhibitions creates an inspirational learning environment that helps children and adults to put pieces of complicated processes together and explore the technology and science behind them.
Olle Nordberg, director, Teknikens Hus, Luleå, Sweden

When developing new exhibitions, we always take the following principles into account:
• The content should be about science and technology in the broad sense.
• The main goal is education, but we also want visitors to have fun.
• Interactivity is important. We aim for a mix of different types of interactivity (from bodies-on to brains-on) and the use of different senses.
• We offer the visitor a unique experience, but with links to daily life.
• Visitors should be challenged, but should always leave with a positive feeling about themselves.
Patricia Verheyden, experience director, Technopolis, the Flemish Science Centre, Mechelen, Belgium

Three core beliefs guide our exhibitions. First, the visitor perspective informs all phases of our projects. In addition to front end, remedial, and summative evaluation, our extensive prototyping process allows us to mock up, evaluate, and revise all of our interactive ideas through an iterative process. Second, design truly matters. We believe an exhibition is more than a set of interactives. Our approach integrates individual exhibit components into a larger, designed, immersive experience. Finally, we question, change, or abandon ideas throughout the entire process to ensure that the final exhibition successfully meets our goals.
Rita Mukherjee Hoffstadt, assistant director of traveling exhibits and special projects, the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia

Two central themes provide the foundation for our exhibition philosophy: (1) Exhibits are most effective when they present science in a multidisciplinary context of everyday human experience, and (2) Visitors learn about science by doing science. We believe that exhibits should:
• Inspire visitors’ curiosity, encourage their sense of play, and reward their participation with understanding.
• Make objects “come alive” and help visitors build connections between those objects and associated ideas, issues, and phenomena.
• Allow for modification to accommodate new discoveries and perspectives.
• Involve visitors informally but directly in the experimental process of science.
• Engage visitors in considering relevant issues and ethical questions related to science.
Joe Imholte, program director, special exhibits & exhibit services, Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul

Image courtesy Heureka