Day 6

I’m not going to lie. I was excited. We woke up, once again at a dangerously early time, and got ready for the day ahead of us: starting at the California Academy of Sciences and culminating with an exploration of the Tech. These two museums defined my childhood as far as informal learning institutions go, and I had fond memories of everything from marveling at a family of aquatic frogs to creating my own glow-in-the-dark jellyfish DNA dating back to mini Julie days.

I had always liked museums. It was something about the ability to explore at my own pace, figuring out what I liked and what I didn’t that appealed to me. Coming in now as an “adult”, this was the critical lens through which I analyzed exhibits, looking at direct engagement and the differing approaches of the museums toward this idea of making science and science communication accessible.

BUTTERFLIES!

The Cal Academy of Sciences, starting off as a mini collection proudly displayed by botanists, was a museum I had visited multiple times. It was the one with the butterflies, penguins, and pretty reasonable pho. As an environmentalist above a lot of things, I got into some heated discussions about the value of a natural science museum in a STEM-oriented world that often skewed more toward the T and E. This echoed what I had seen at the Exploratorium and the Mission Science Workshop, each operating in its own unique space. What’s the point of looking at rocks? I don’t think we’re really engaging with the material. Just a few comments I heard from my engineer-heavy cohort (gotta love them… and tigers though). After some discussion with various directors of programming, philanthropy, outreach, etc…, I came to a few conclusions about the museum and my varying experience both as a kid and a college student.

1. Identity. The museum does a pretty damn good job of walking the walk and talking the talk in terms of adhering to its core values. Above all, it values the natural sciences and the beauty of the everyday natural world and all its biodiversity; the second you walk into the doubly LEED platinum certified institution, you feel like you don’t know where you are, exactly, but you know it’s a unique space.
2. Quantifying impact. I think its emphasis on education is much different than the other institutions we visited. Instead of presenting something flashy and interactive, it presented the real world to community members who might’ve never been able to connect with it in person. What is the value of this level of engagement? Apparently 30 seconds worth per exhibit front, but it brought up the important question: How do you quantify impact? How do you measure fascination with a static medium, in a way that’s distinct from the wonder elicited from hands-on work? I saw attempts to do this in the volunteer docent staff, which was ready to answer any questions, but I saw very few using those resources.
3. Butterflies.
4. Scaling outreach efforts. After some interesting work “inputting data” (aka messing around with Google Forms with manual data), I realized the difficulty of scaling an education outreach project to a national scale. Science Action Committee, a series of workshops meant to promote “becoming a citizen scientist” to 5–8th graders all over the nation, was the museum’s attempt to promote accessibility of science among underrepresented youth. After inputting about 2 dozen kids far outside that range (1st and 2nd graders from the Midwest, to be specific) and one student who drew some zig-zag patterns with his or her bubbling, I realized how challenging accountability was. To whom do you owe the success? Local instructors? The program itself? The institution that implements it effectively and collects data? And who do you hold accountable if the students check that the program was ineffective or just not applicable?

Peggy demonstrating the importance of biodiversity.

The Tech! Operating in a unique space with the intersection of science and technology, I found it interesting to see the mishmash of old and new, as I stumbled upon the same exhibit floor that I had seen in 5th grade. What distinguishes the Tech from other museums that we visited was its emphasis on technology-driven exhibits; here, it wasn’t uncommon to see hundreds of thousands, if not a million dollars sunk into a choice few exhibits, like the Social Robots exhibition, or the Stanford-collaborated Virtual Reality Beta Test. I saw some really interesting and interactive exhibits and was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the exhibits and their high-tech displays, which advocated for bilingualism. Here’s some of my observations.

Social Robots — collected via Tech Tag

1. Engagement. I thought it was interesting to look at engagement time of students at the Tech, as well as observing the elementary + middle school target audience. I saw students interacting with the “game-ified” messages about science, especially after volunteering with the CyberSecurity section, but saw them quickly lose interest once text popped up or they didn’t need to read walls of words. Wondering what the best balance is between information giving and hands-on learning when the learning is so tech-heavy and some pretty complicated stuff.
2. Exhibits. I loved the idea of beta testing exhibits. I think there’s so much power to learning from doing on the museum side, and the stories they told about small changes making large impacts was pretty cool. For example, changing things as simple as exhibit names or removing wheels on robots or toolboxes from tables increased female engagement by significant margins. Understanding the way the floor interacts with new exhibitions and making small changes along the way is neat, but it sounded like was not widely implemented.
3. Avenues for improvement. I think the Tech is very much good at the space in which operates, but it’s thinking about the short-term flashy technology that drives scientific learning. When you’re considering resource allocation, especially for a smaller museum, it’s interesting to think about the impact you’re making. I was disappointed to hear their Tech Tags, which were required to scan at each exhibit, weren’t being used to collect data about demographics, engagement time, and profiles about its visitors. But I was shocked for the 3% of visitors that actually used it after their visit. It becomes very clear to me that these are two avenues in which the museum can definitely make strides. From speaking to some of the higher ups at this institution, I also found myself having questions about vision for the future. Where does the Tech go from here?

In comparing the two, I saw the emphasis on docents/volunteers interacting with the floor in theory, but not necessarily in person. I have questions about what happens after the initial “spark” for both institutions, especially with people losing interest in the Tech (and its tags) and the inaccessibility of the information people absorb at the Cal Academy (which is pretty much a given for anyone who doesn’t have full-sized skeletal systems or penguins or exotic fish). Really enjoyed both museums’ efforts to have free days, whether it’s neighborhood-days (Cal Academy) or general open-to-public viewing (Tech).

Dope. tl;dr our group was able to explore two different institutions (Cal Academy of Sciences + the Tech) and their different approaches to making learning accessible, as well as the different values of their organizations.