Interviewed by Joelle Seligson

This interview appeared in the January/February 2013 issue of Dimensions magazine.

Watt’s Up? is both an exhibition and a question that Denise Amyot, president and CEO of the Canadian Science and Technology Museums Corporation in Ottawa, Ontario, is trying to answer through a cross-Canada initiative. Amyot spearheaded Let’s Talk Energy: Engaging Ideas for Canada’s Future, a six-year public engagement program launched in 2010. Her work earned her ASTC’s Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for New Leadership in the Field, which she accepted at the 2012 ASTC Annual Conference last October. Amyot spoke with Dimensions about how she’s energizing Canada about energy.

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 January/February 2013 issue of Dimensions magazine.

“If they had more special exhibitions, then we’d get a membership and come more often.”
—Science Museum of Minnesota visitor, August 2011

Our most recent audience survey, conducted in 2011 (n=830), suggests that there are factors beyond immediate attendance to blockbuster exhibitions to consider. For instance, 85% of visitors responded that they would be more likely to visit the museum more frequently if they knew something was different or had changed. While visitors’ intentions do not necessarily lead to actions, blockbuster exhibitions may inform visitors’ perceptions of change at the museum and encourage repeat visits and new memberships.

Gayra Ostgaard, museum evaluator 2
Gretchen Haupt, museum evaluator 1
Al Onkka, museum evaluator 2
Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul
(more…)

IN THIS ISSUE
November/December 2012

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

By Christine Reich
From Dimensions
November/December 2012

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.
(more…)

Let me forewarn readers that the next few paragraphs are about science—real science, as defined by such terms as inductive reasoning, hypothesis testing, statistical analyses, and probabilistic modeling. Some people call this child’s play, and, in fact, it is precisely about child’s play that I am referring.

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.
(more…)