Interviewed by Joelle Seligson

“It was a case of professional schizophrenia—but a very useful one,” laughs Ilan Chabay about his varied career path. He has dabbled in the natural sciences, exhibition design, museum administration, and higher education. Currently professor and senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, Chabay advocates taking a similarly multidimensional approach to addressing global change. Here he advises on how science centers and museums can become key partners in transdisciplinary research for sustainability, as he’ll discuss at the 2013 ASTC Annual Conference in Albuquerque this October.

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 May/June 2013 issue of Dimensions magazine.

Scitech has been running adults-only nights twice a year since 2009, the year we turned 21. We started doing these evenings as we realized that there must be an increasing number of young people who had experienced Scitech as children, but most likely hadn’t returned as they were either not yet parents, or felt that the center was just for kids, and they wouldn’t feel comfortable visiting during normal opening hours where they would be bumping shoulders with 5- to 12-year-olds. These nights have been a marked success with an average of 800 people visiting during the Saturday night opening from 6 to 10 p.m., and with regular inquiries about the date of the next event. Even though families with young children will continue to be our primary target market, we believe it’s still valuable to engage young adults at our center, as it helps foster an increasing appreciation of the value and impact of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in the Western Australian community, regardless of whether these young people work in a STEM field.

Kate Elder, director of communications and marketing
Scitech, Perth, Australia

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IN THIS ISSUE
March/April 2013

Digital media is increasingly present in our daily lives, as well as on the floor of the science center. In this issue, we look at how informal educators and designers are using digital media and gaming to create compelling, interactive learning experiences. Whether by tackling science-based challenges on a mobile device, designing their own digital dome productions, or gaming in the real world or a virtual one, audiences are using the flexibility of new technologies and the power of play to engage deeply with science.

Features
• Learning Labs: Transforming Youth from Digital Consumers to Creators, by Margaret Glass
• Designing Digital Interactive Experiences that Promote Learning, by Leilah Lyons
• Virtual Worlds: Avatars as Avenues to Advance Science Learning, by Lindsay Bartholomew and Judy Brown
• Reinventing Dome Production for Community Storytelling, by Dave Pentecost
• Legs, Not Fingers: Why Physical Games Are a Better Bet for Museums than Digital Projects, by Margaret Robertson
• Games and STEM Education: Building Knowledge Through Play, by Jodi Asbell-Clarke

Online Departments
• From the CEO
• Q&A with Ainissa Ramirez

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By Margaret Glass
From Dimensions
March/April 2013

Today’s youth grow up in a digitally networked world. With cell phones, laptops, and tablets, via social media platforms, videos, and podcasts, they connect to each other and to their world like never before. Yet with only a few exceptions, the digital signal gets dropped at the door when teens go to school; youth get most of their exposure to new digital media outside of school.

This reality raises some important questions: How do youth learn to move across the digital landscape, choosing tools and platforms? Who are the adults that help to mediate this experience? What about teens in communities with a persistent digital divide? How do young people transition from being passive consumers of new media to becoming innovative thinkers and doers?
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The ASTC office in Washington, D.C., is only a few Metro stops away from the National Library of Congress, which houses among its treasures a compilation of oral and written testimonials from those who have witnessed history. Testimonials personalize events; they bind the presenters and listeners through common thoughts and feelings. Stories are much richer through first-hand telling.

In thinking about these historical testimonials, it occurs to me that so many fascinating individuals have passed through the doors of our science centers and museums and experienced so much. If we are judged by the company we keep, then we are no doubt judged favorably for the company of so many curious and inspired folks who have chosen to spend their precious time with us.
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