EXPERIENCE PLANET EARTH

Museums and Earth Science Interpretation

Simon Schneider, GETOECHNOLOGIEN coordination office

“Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken peoples’ curiosity! It’s enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.” - French author and Nobel-Laureate Anatole France

(as cited in Ward & Wilkinson, 2006, p. 24)

There are a lot of regional museums, sometimes as small as a single room or a shed somewhere in the wild, interpreting geological features like outstanding rock formations, paleontological discoveries, or breathtaking lookouts.

Exhibition areas about plate tectonics, volcanoes, or natural hazards are common in natural and natural history museums. Occasionally even mineralogical features such as common rock types and natural resources are chapters within these museums.

But the relevance of Earth and Space sciences for our daily live stays only marginally highlighted.

There are two sides to Earth science communication in museum environments.

The slow and shy approach from scientists toward museums

The new demands of the Information Age on museums to develop into multitasking, educational, and entertaining facilitators of knowledge

What science has to learn: museums are more than just showcases for artifacts,

exhibits, and pictures. Museums maintain a complex and multifarious

infrastructure - not only to support the presentation but also to develop new and innovative approaches in communicating content, to develop and conduct innovative and creative programs.

The communicative know-how at museums is highly specialized to present complex issues.

There are Educationalists who … bring curriculum expertise to museums translate scientific vocabulary into a suitable

language for different audiences. They are trained in developing educational

programs (face-to-face, workshops, children’s birthday parties, book signings, special events (e.g. International Museum Days or “Long Nights”)

Public Understanding of Science and Humanities (PUSH) has become the focus of controversial discussion within both protagonist camps:

scientists are no longer willing to “downsize” and translate their research without proper support by agencies and policy,

communication research has shown that science communication by itself is not the suitable tool for building the targeted “understanding of science”.

(for example Renn, 1986; Schiele, Claessens, & Shi, 2012)

American journalist and author Freeman Tilden defined the function of interpretation as

“an educational activity, which aims to reveal meaning and relationship through the use of original objects, by firsthand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information”.

Wells, Butler, and Koke (2013) quoted Sir Ken Robinson that

“rather than anesthetizing learners using the traditional factory model [of education] we should be waking them up by stimulating their imaginations and creativity”.

Ergo, taking science into museums should not have strict learning as a goal; instead, it should focus on provoking critical thinking and curiosity.

An important principle within developing programs for science communication in museums is the so-called interpretive equation (National Park Service, 1999, 2000;

Larsen, n.d., 1998):

(KR+ KA) AT = IOThis equation summarizes a scheme to obtain the key factors for successful

interpretation. Within the equation, KR represents the interpreter’s “knowledge of the resource,” KA represents the interpreter’s “knowledge of the audience,” AT represents the interpreter’s use of an “appropriate technique,” and IO represents the production of an “interpretive opportunity” for visitors.

Scientists and others who start an exhibition project often underestimate the impact of accompanying text. It is easy to damage the good impression of a well-made exhibition by using too much text, the wrong style and language, or scientific terms and tone.

“Too often writing is seen as unimportant, something done in a spare half-hour. Writing which commands attention and is memorable is hard work” (Carter,

2000).

Tip-sheets proffer guidelines about how to write effective text for exhibitions (see for example the London Metropolitan University tip sheet).

A summary on research related to the effectiveness and reception of exhibition text is given by Bitgood (2000).

Traveling exhibitions represent great tools for research organizations that do not have a museum.

If scientific organizations and museums cooperate, then they can share collective resources such as materials, time, consulting with experts on particular themes of interest (e.g. family learning or accessibility), as well as time with evaluators.

There is both a need and an opportunity to develop the exhibit-building capacity of small museums by cooperating with research institutions and organizations.

“A collaborative, therefore, is not only seen as a good way to build better exhibits, but is also seen as a good way to engage in a collective capacity-building endeavor” (Carroll et al., 2005).

Museum professionals and Earth scientists would do well to remember the wise words of Anatole France:

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards”.

Simon Schneider, GETOECHNOLOGIEN coordination office, simon@geotechnologien.de

Ward, C. W., & Wilkinson, A. E. (2006). Conducting meaningful interpretation: A field guide for success. Golden, CO, USA: Fulcrum Publishing.

Hudec, H. (2004). Evaluation: A critical step in creating effective museum exhibits. (Unpublished thesis). University of Chicago. Retrieved fromhttp://mps.uchicago.edu/docs/2005/articles/hudec_thesis_short.pdf

Renn, O. (1986). Akzeptanzforschung: Technik in der gesellschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung. Chemie in unserer Zeit. 20. Jhrg. Nr.2. Weinheim, Germany: VCH Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (p 44–52).

Schiele, B, Claessens, M., Shi, S. (2012). Science Communication in the World, Hamburg, Germany: Springer (pp 125–137)

Wells, M. D., Butler, B., & Koke, J. (2013). Interpretive planning for museums. Walnut Creek, CA, USA: LeftCoast Press.

National Park Service. (1999). All about the program. Interpretive Development Program Homepage [On-line]. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/

National Park Service. (2000). Module 101: How interpretation works: The interpretive equation. Interpretive Development Program Homepage. [On-line]. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/101/howitworks.htm

Larsen, D. L. (1998). Observation for “Quest” meeting. (Unpublished manuscript).

Leyland, E. (2011). Interpretive Text Panels. Retrieved from http://eric-leyland.blogspot.de/2011/08/interpretive-text-panels.html

Bitgood, S. (2000). The role of attention in designing effective interpretive labels. Journal of Interpretation Research, 5(2), 31–45.

Carroll, B., Huntwork, D., & St. John M. (2005). Traveling exhibits at museums of science (TEAMS). A Summative Evaluation Report, Inverness Research Associates. Retrieved from http://www.inverness-research.org/reports/2005-04-teams/2005-04-Rpt-Teams-summative_eval.pdf

References