NOTÍCIAS

Harvesting the benefits of a fruitful exchange between science centres
Parallel Session H, 14th April, 17h30-18h50

Jamie Bell, The Exploratorium, CA, USA

In the early 1990's, with support from CNPq and the National Science Foundation of the United States, Espaço Ciencia Viva and the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California conducted an exchange program in which staff members spent three weeks visiting each other's institutions. On the occasion of the 4th International Science Science Center World Congress in Rio, representatives from both ECV and The Exploratorium will take part in a panel session to reflect on the exchange, and the professional development that grew from it.

Exhibit developers, scientists and educators were among the participants in the program, which was the first of its kind for both institutions. New exhibits (Distorted Room, Café Wall Illusion and Perspective Drawing Table), new pedagogies, new research and new approaches to addressing potentially sensitive topics were some of the outcomes of the exchange, and since then ECV and the Exploratorium have embarked on a variety of partnerhip models with science centers around the world.

For the Exploratorium, the exchange program provided a unique opportunity to try out exhibit ideas, in a different cultural context, within constraints that sparked new levels of creativity. It was also a chance to exchange ideas about training teachers and floor staff.

The Espaço Ciência Viva (ECV), a non-profit organization, was founded in 1983 by a group of scientists, teachers, undergraduate and graduate students and liberal professionals interested in making the knowledge, methods and practice of science accessible to everyone.

Espaço Ciência Viva looks forward to the forum that the World Congress provides to revisit a fruitful partnership and rekindle the possibility of working with the Exploratorium again in the future.