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Exhibit Development Resource
Exhibit List
Thinking Skills
Seeing the Unseen
Finding the Pattern
Making Models
Testing the Theory
Putting It to Work
Playing with Ideas
Exhibit Prototyping
Universal Design (Accessibility)
Education Standards
Traveling Exhibits
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The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following:
The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge
of scientific "truth" . . . but also needed is imagination to create .
. . the great generalizations -- to guess at the wonderful, simple,
but very strange patterns . . .
Richard Feynman, Lectures on Physics
In 1996 the Museum of Science opened Investigate! A See-For-Yourself Exhibit, the component of the Museum's long-range exhibit plan based on providing visitors with practice in the scientific thinking skills associated with conducting an experiment. This project was made possible in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation Informal Science Education program. [ESI-9353537, Testing the Theory.]
(Entry photo)
Goals
The Testing the Theory project aimed to:
- provide visitors with practice in formulating and testing ideas about the world around them;
- make visitors self-aware of what it means to experiment;
- encourage visitors to transfer scientific habits of mind from the Museum setting to their own lives; and
- involve visitors in ongoing scientific research.
Science Thinking Skills
Science thinking skills promoted by Investigate! include:
- asking questions and generating ideas
- formulating hypotheses
- gathering and weighing evidence,
- using instruments to design experiments
- recording and interpreting data
- drawing conclusions
Habits of mind fostered within Investigate! include:
- curiosity
- respect for evidence
- skepticism and open-mindedness
Evaluation Results
Investigate! opened in March of 1996 and summative evaluation conducted by the Program Evaluation and Research Group at Lesley College showed several significant results.
- There can be no doubt that visitors are engaged; the evidence is overwhelming: they remain a long time, they spend time doing activities associated with the exhibits, they report that the visit was a positive experience, they talk about what they are doing with each other, and they use the equipment, instruments and content of the exhibits.
- Remarkably long visitor times were found for individual components of Investigate! . . . many of (the visitor decay curves) are as long as those frequently observed for entire exhibitions.
- There is overwhelming evidence that visitors asked questions and considerable circumstantial evidence that they formed hypotheses. Visitors gathered evidence constantly.
- The evidence that Investigate! fosters social interaction is, again, overwhelming.
- A striking feature of visitor response to the exhibit was their perseverance in various tasks.
- Investigate! is popular with visitors. They mention it, they crowd into it and they return to it. Visitors spend time exploring fairly simple physical interactions and engaging in activities that are 'scientific'.
- Significant numbers of visitors were coming back to the exhibit after a previous experience with it.
See the complete evalutation:
E. Bailey, K. Bronnenkant, J. Kelley and G. E. Hein,."Visitor Behavior at a
Constructivist Exhibition: Evaluating Investigate! at Boston's Museum of
Science," in Dufresne-Tassé, C. editor, Évaluation et éducation musíal:
nouvelles tendances, Montreal: ICOM/CECA, 1998, pp. 149-168.
The article is one of several research studies presented at the 1997 annual
meeting of the Committee for Education and Cultural Action (CECA), a
committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
Additional Resources
(downloads: TTT NSF proposal)
Museum Magazine Story: A New Kind of Exhibit: Where Visitors Really Do Science
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