Science Museum Research Articles

Biological models and replicas in Museu de História Natural e da Ciência da Universidade do Porto, Portugal

Biological models and replicas were in their heyday in the nineteenth century when they were common in primary, elementary, secondary and higher education institutions, as they were frequently used to illustrate anatomical structures mentioned in textbooks and scientific papers. Biological models and replicas are part of the heritage of the Museu de História Natural e da Ciência da Universidade do Porto (Natural History and Science Museum, University of Oporto) offering insights into the world of these unique collections. We performed a study on the use of these industrial-made models and replicas of the internal or/and external anatomy of animals and plants that accompanied many of the practical demonstrations in comparative biology and anatomy classes at the Academia Politécnica do Porto and, later on, at the Universidade do Porto, its successor. Artisanal models and replicas were also used in biology and anthropology classes. This research on these special items helps promote their value and contributes to the dissemination of information and may be relevant to other institutions owning identical models.

Children's Interest, Search, and Knowledge: A Pilot Analysis of a STEM Maker Workshop

ABSTRACTWhen understanding information seeking, individuals' knowledge construction and interest development are critical to be considered because of their active interactions with each other. Especially for children, these three dimensions—interest, search, and knowledge—can constantly influence each other and support meaningful learning experiences. However, there is a lack of empirical investigation to understand this interplay between the dimensions, particularly in children's real‐life environments. Building upon the previous literature on the conceptual demonstration of interest, search, and knowledge construction, we used a qualitative, video‐based research approach to conduct a pilot analysis of a child's experiences from a maker workshop at a science museum. Our pilot analysis provides a basis for empirical investigation of children's authentic information seeking and learning.

António da Costa Paiva (Barão de Castelo de Paiva) (1806–1879): his malacological collection from Madeira in Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal

The Museu da Ciência da Universidade de Coimbra (MCUC) (Science Museum of the University of Coimbra) hosts an important historical collection of land and freshwater snails from the Madeira Archipelago. This collection of 1,768 specimens (120 recent taxa within 20 families) was recently catalogued and digitized. Specimens in MCUC collections were recognized as being provided by António da Costa Paiva (Barão de Castelo de Paiva). This Portuguese nobleman also donated other mollusc collections to different scientific institutions and natural history museums in Portugal and abroad in the mid nineteenth-century. The study of the origin of the MCUC mollusc collection, beyond the data associated with the specimens, is important to the research on the endangered fauna of the Madeira Archipelago. This work precedes a comprehensive study ongoing in MCUC regarding the species occurrence and the systematic review on a great number of species hosted in the museum collection.

Adaptation of International Experience of Creation of Science Popularization Centers to Russian Realities

Introduction. In 2021, within the framework of the Year of Science and Technology announced in Russia, the work related to the popularization of Russian science and technology plays an important role. Noticeable shifts in the field of science popularization require the selection of new forms and methods of knowledge dissemination. Interactive scientific museums and science popularization centers are called upon to play a significant role in this field. For now, a system of indicators has been developed, but it does not fully meet requirements that should be applied to the science popularization objects. The main purpose of the article is to analyze the functioning of science and technology museums, museums of natural sciences and science popularization centers in Russia and in foreign countries and, based on the study of approaches to the effectiveness of their activities, to develop approaches and tools for popularization of scientific knowledge in Russia through creation of science popularization centers and knowledge quarters. Materials and Methods. Based on the reviewed forms and methods for organization of museum functioning in China, the USA, France, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy and New Zealand the museum and science popularization center (SPC) activity analysis has been conducted to understand such indicators of their activities as funding, management documents in museum functioning, criteria and procedure for museum functioning assessment, etc. This has given us the possibility to discover common features and peculiarities of museum standards of these countries. Also, primary criteria and institutions for assessment of museums and science popularization centers in Russia have been determined. Through utilization of their activity assessment documents the outstanding centers and museums of Russia have been shown, the map of museums of natural sciences and science and technology museums of our country has been developed, the recommendations to increase their activity have been prepared. Based on the method of structural analysis and synthesis, the data have been studied and summarized, which allowed creating a model as a conceptual representation of the knowledge quarter functioning, predicting new approaches and tools for popularization of science in Russia. The identified approaches in the activities of Russian and foreign museums and popularization centers have been taken into account conceptually when forming proposals for improving popularization activities in Russia. Results. With the help of the conceptual construct used to characterize museums of natural sciences, science and technology museums and science popularization centers, the basic criteria for evaluating a science popularization center in Russia have been outlined; the specifics of foreign experience that can be useful in assessing the effectiveness of an SPC in Russia has been shown; the measures have been proposed to introduce knowledge quarters as an innovative approach to popularize science in the country. Discussion and Conclusion. The work of a science popularization center should be organized at each world-class scientific and educational center and at each world-class scientific center. When implementing the new strategic academic leadership program “Priority 2030”, it is recommended to take into account the need to integrate the activities of leading universities with the activities of an SPC. The creation of a partnership of organizations based on the conceptual novel approaches for functioning of knowledge quarters working in the field of science, education and business, which are geographically located in close proximity to each other, will contribute to ensuring the influx of talented young people into science and will allow the state and society to more effectively solve the tasks of implementing state policy in the field of science, technology and innovation in the future.

행위자기반 모형 분석이론에 따른 과학관 공간구성에 대한 연구

Currently, as we enter the 21st century, the level and interest of society, culture, economy, and science are rapidly developing, but science education is still struggling. In order to increase the efficiency of science education, it is most important to focus on elementary education based on basic science. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the main causes of Korea's science museum's regression as a museum focusing on experience, interest, and fun such as simple science experience centers and science theme parks. To this end, the influencing factors were identified by applying the algorithm of the actor-based model based on the data on the exhibition space and the exhibition movement of the science museum completed and operated in Korea over the past 5 years, and the problem of the visitor movement in the exhibition space was analyzed through the space system. In this study, it was confirmed that the exhibition environment was the best when the linear plot movement system and the picalesque plot were applied simultaneously in the museum's exhibition narrative theory, and the arrangement of major exhibition spaces, width of exhibition spaces, and separation of spaces for exhibition purposes were derived.

ЕСКІ ЖӘДІГЕРЛЕРДЕГІ АРАБГРАФИКАЛЫ ЭПИГРАФИКАЛЫҚ ДЕРЕКТЕР (ҚР МОМ МАТЕРИАЛДАРЫНЕГІЗІНДЕ)

In this article, the author examines the Arabic inscriptions on nine exhibits kept in the fund of the Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Chronologically, these original artifacts date back to the 19th century. Four of them are made of wood, two –of bone and three –of metal. During the research work, the volumes (width, length, thickness) of the exhibits were firstmeasured, scientific characteristics were recorded, and then they were grouped according to the thematic and chronological principle. Verbatim and subscript translations of the Arabic texts of all the exhibits into the modern Kazakh language were made. In the process of translation, the features of the content of the texts of each exhibit are revealed and systematized. In particular, the general content and contextual similarity of unsystematic religious texts on four, i.e. wooden andbone (horse shoulder blades), of these valuable monuments are considered interrelated with the spiritual worldview, customs and traditions of the Kazakh ethnic group. The information in the texts of iron artifacts that are homogeneous in type, but differ in content (iron forms, a single-edged sword, aibalta) is also translated and analyzed. Although the information in these texts is not interconnected, however, they provide a lot of specific factual materials for researchers studying the history of traditional weapons used by the Kazakh people during various wars. The study of various inscriptions on such epigraphic monuments (not only in Arabic) has been carried out by individual museum scientists in recent years. This article is a logical continuation of such work.

The Scope and Status of Sustainability Education in Out-of-School Settings across Denmark

Denmark has a strong foundation in terms of sustainability, making the country an interesting backdrop for studying how the overarching sustainability agenda has shaped education practice. This study investigated the scope and status of sustainability education targeted at grade 4-6 students in Danish out-ofschool science education institutions, such as natural history museums, science and technology museums, science centres, zoos and aquaria. First, a desktop review took place to map educational programmes with sustainability content. Second, five representative programmes were selected for further study. Thematic analysis of observation field notes and interviews with educators and teachers yielded four themes that collectively defined the sustainability programmes: institution, formal education, content and pedagogy. The final sections of the paper contextualise these themes, and discuss their implications for sustainability education in out-of-school practice. The study concludes by offering reflections on constructive future pathways for sustainability education.

School Visits to Science Museums: A Framework for Analyzing Teacher Practices

ABSTRACT School visits to science museums are recognized educational resources that provide students with unique learning experiences, if teachers intentionally plan these. Surprisingly one finds that investigations analyzing teachers adopted practices by systematic monitoring, without researcher intervention, are almost non-existent in the literature. We developed the School Visits Articulated Framework (SVAF) to identify and classify (through levels’ scale) the school visits planning practices. The mainly objective was to reach a characterization of teachers’ practices in a perspective of articulations formal education and non-formal education contexts may then be defined. In this article, we describe how we applied the SVAF on five case studies configured as school visits to a science museum, simultaneously we test the framework efficiency. The analysis of the visit plan from the perspective of the SVAF allowed us to identify moments in which the teachers’ practices did not meet expectations according to the literature in the area. Likewise, it revealed the predominance of activities carried out in the steps before the visit to the museum and emphasized the lack of activities carried out in the museum and on returning to school after the visit. These results allow us to better outline the objectives and needs to be met in the initial and continuous training courses for teachers and museum educators, aiming at the best use of this resource for student learning. The SVAF is a framework capable of to identify and classify the teachers’ practices, since the instruments it integrates provided important and detailed information.

Emotion in Informal Learning as Mediated Action: Cultural, Interpersonal and Personal Lenses

Emotion and affect are important but undertheorized and under researched elements of learning in informal contexts such as science centers, museums, zoos, and aquariums. An interactional and discursive approach to emotions as mediated action was used to develop a three-part framework for documenting and exploring the place of emotional expression among family groups (n = 10 groups; 33 individuals) visiting an ocean exhibit in an interactive science museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Among our results, we observed that the most commonly expressed emotion was surprise, excitement, amusement and curiosity; the most frequently occurring categories of emotional expression among the families in interaction were those associated with being actively engaged in positive emotional interaction. Transcripts of interaction are presented to illustrate the framework and examined in light of emotional expression as a mediator of 1) active, collaborative, meaning making; 2) learner agency and protagonism; and 3) empathy. Results from the entire data set are interpreted using the Core Affect Model of Engagement. We present examples of and discuss how and why a mediated action approach to emotion as a social, distributed, interactional and discursive phenomena may be helpful both for advancing the study of emotion as an aspect of informal learning and exhibit design.

Promoting the scientific spirit and ideas: How to realize the guiding role of scientific culture based on the modern science and technology museum system

In the context of the publication of the National Action Plan for Scientific Literacy (2021–2035) and the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Modern Science and Technology Museum System (2021–2025), and based on a review of the history and characteristics of various science popularization venues, this paper analyses the mission of those venues in advocating scientific methods, disseminating scientific ideas and promoting the scientific spirit and the scientist spirit. It discusses the requirements for science popularization venues to strengthen scientific culture. Finally, the paper provides suggestions for fulfilling the guiding role of scientific culture through promoting the modern science and technology museum system, including enhancing strategic awareness, strengthening academic research and breaking disciplinary barriers.

Proprioceptive art: How should it be defined, and why has it become so popular?

In recent years, there has been something of an explosion of interest in those artworks and installations that directly foreground the bodily senses. Often referred to as proprioceptive (or prop.) art, the question to be addressed in this narrative historical review is how it should be defined, and why has it become so popular? A contrast is drawn with examples of sculpture and/or tactile art. The entertainment/experiential element of such works cannot be denied, especially in an era where funding in the arts sector is so often linked to footfall. At the same time, however, a number of the works appear to be about little more than entertainment/amusement. One might wonder why such “edutainment” should be placed in the art gallery rather than, say, in a museum of science or illusion. Nevertheless, in the best cases, the foregrounding, or removal, of bodily sensations that proprioceptive artworks deliver can potentially help to connect people in an increasingly digital, online, mostly audiovisual, and hence in some sense disembodied contemporary existence. These issues are discussed in the context of the works of Carsten Höller, a prolific German installation and object artist.

Deepen supply-side reform of science popularization resources and build high-quality and highly efficient modern science and technology museums

Standing at the starting point of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), China's modern science and technology museum system faces both new opportunities and challenges, and urgently needs supply-side reform of science popularization resources. The reform should maintain the direction of promoting public participation, strengthening cross-sector integration, applying emerging technologies, promoting the science popularization industry and deepening international cooperation. The aim of the reform is to optimize exhibition levels and quality, deepen the diversity and innovation of educational resources, refine the detection of and response to visitor demands, and strengthen academic research and the transformation of research achievements. Such efforts will serve to cultivate the capacity for holding popular exhibitions, enhancing science communication, delivering targeted services and driving innovation, and will promote the development of high-quality and highly efficient modern science and technology museums.

Materialities and transnational scientific culture of objects: the 12th International Congress of Zoology, Lisbon, 1935

The material memory of the 12th International Congress of Zoology, held in Lisbon in 1935 includes insignias - the starfish - and caricatures of zoologists. Through an investigation of the archives at the University of Lisbon's National Museum of Natural History and Science, we intend to investigate the material landscape as conceived by the zoologist Artur Ricardo Jorge by drawing epistemologically on the potentialities of the biography of scientific objects. This research note reveals a scientific discourse translated into materialities circulated in public spaces in the globalized Europe of the 1930s, with references from scientific power, in the context of Portugal's Estado Novo regime, enshrined in its 1933 constitution.

Introduction

Introduction

Transforming Closed Silos into Shared Resources: Opening up data on historical collection agents affiliated with the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

Many natural science collections (NSCs) and museums keep information about collectors and other collection agents affiliated with their specimens and respective institution in internal catalogues, databases or wikis. Despite the fact that people data are crucial for linking collection objects, expeditions, publications, archival material, correspondence, etc. (Page 2016, Groom et al. 2020), such data are often only available internally, with limited or no access for external users. In the past, collectors have often been active in multiple fields, gathering e.g., zoological and botanical as well as ethnological or anthropological objects. This transdisciplinary collecting practice, in addition to the tradition of exchanging duplicates between institutions, results in a large overlap of people affiliated with different collections. Opening up available data will improve data quality in collection databases, support the disambiguation of collection agents (Dillen et al. 2021) and allow cross-disciplinary reuse of the data. Within a pilot study conducted at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN), the information kept in an internal “MfN collector wiki” is made available via Wikidata. Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that is collaborative and multilingual, and can be edited by anyone in the world. Wikidata stores structured data that are both human and machine readable, and it serves as a hub/broker for other identifiers (Vrandečić and Krötzsch 2014). An innovative open participatory approach is taken using edit-a-thons, involving MfN staff (collection manager, scientific heads of collections, scientists, etc.) to add and update information ‘passively’ available within the institution, and the wider public, e.g., citizen scientists and other interested parties. MfN staff (collection manager, scientific heads of collections, scientists, etc.) to add and update information ‘passively’ available within the institution, and the wider public, e.g., citizen scientists and other interested parties. Wikidata items are newly created or updated and enriched with additional information, also linking to collections, archives, and libraries. In this talk we will present the method and preliminary results of our study. One focus will be ‘hidden champions’ such as women scientists and local collectors, to make their contribution to global natural heritage visible. Another focus will be on collections from the era of European colonial expansion until the beginning of the 20th century, especially the former German colony, Cameroon. The number of institutions openly sharing data is increasing. However, following the TDWG 2022 conference motto “Stronger together”, we call for others to join in sharing data using persistent (people) identifiers and standards.

A comparison of syntactic patterns of Brazilian Portuguese and English: using comparable corpora of museum texts

The aim of this paper is to analyze two corpora (one in Brazilian Portuguese and another English), from PUCRS’ Science and Technology Museum, to unveil which of these languages could be rendered to be more or less syntactically and rhetorically elaborate. The corpora were processed on Natural Language Processing tools, such as NILC-Metrix, Coh-Metrix 3.0 and AntConc. Results point to the feature regarding the higher number of words before the main verb as the main factor rendering syntactic and rhetoric elaboration and, consequently, more complexity in the Portuguese corpus.

СТЕНД «МАГНИТОСФЕРА» В ЭКСПОЗИЦИИ МУЗЕЯ ЗЕМЛЕВЕДЕНИЯ «ЗЕМЛЯ ВО ВСЕЛЕННОЙ»

The poster at the exhibition «Earth in the Universe» in the Earth Science Museum demonstrates specific features of the structure and dynamics of the complex system of Earth’s magnetosphere. Processes occurring in the magnetosphere are considered.

СРЕДНЕДЕВОНСКИЕ КОККОСТЕИДНЫЕ ПАНЦИРНЫЕ РЫБЫ ВОРОНЕЖСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ (ЖИВЕТ ПАВЛОВСКОГО КАРЬЕРА) ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ В КОЛЛЕКЦИИ МУЗЕЯ ЗЕМЛЕВЕДЕНИЯ МГУ

Remains of coccosteid placoderm fishes (Placodermi: Euarthrodira: Coccosteidae) from the Ardatovka Beds (Givetian, Middle Devonian) of the Pavlovsk Quarry, Voronezh Region (the territory of the Central Devonian field) are briefly described. This material is currently stored at the Earth Science Museum of Moscow State University. Only disparate data on coccosteids and their close relatives (determinations at a level of high taxa), known from this territory, appeared in the literature to date. Bones and their fragments of the trunk armour are mainly presented in the collection. Only one fragment of the nuchal (occipital) bone of the head armour is exhibited. The coccosteid bones from Middle Devonian of the Pavlovsk Quarry are morphologically closer to plates of Livosteus (Gross), known from the Givetian of the Main Devonian field; but there are some differences, such as a ventral sensory groove on the anterior medio-ventral bone, a slightly developed posterior lateral corner of the posterior ventro-lateral and others. These remains are preliminary identified as Livosteus aff. L. grandis (Gross). These new materials supplement the data on the morphology and distribution of coccosteids from the East European platform.

The Construction of Civil Scientific Literacy in China from the Perspective of Science Education.

On 25 June 2021, the State Council issued the new Outline of the National Action Scheme for Scientific Literacy for All Chinese Citizens (2020–2035) (Outline of Scientific Literacy). In order to provide reference for its implementation, this study analyzes the achievements and obstacles in the implementation of the old Outline of Scientific Literacy (2006–2010-2020) based on the results of all previous surveys on civic scientific literacy (CSL) in China and from the perspective of science education. The results showed a continued steady growth in CSL, from 1.6 in 2005 to 10.56% in 2020. Specifically, male, urban, and younger adults were more likely to qualify as possessing CSL. Moreover, education level was found to be positively related to CSL. The study also found that in China, the effectiveness of formal science education has been hampered by the long-term division of the arts and sciences, examination-oriented education, the urban–rural gap, and the aging population. In terms of informal education, 37.2% of Chinese citizens visited science museums in 2020, and the Internet plays an increasing important role. Nowadays, Chinese science popularization lacks interaction, with limited opportunities for public engagement. There are deficiencies in both the country’s formal and informal science education, meaning that there is still much room for improvement in the promotion of CSL in China.

Collections do not have to Remain Ambiguous Forever: Seven steps to getting the correct people into your data

People are involved with the collection and curation of all biodiversity data, whether they are researchers, members of the public, taxonomists, conservationists, collection managers or wildlife managers. Knowing who those people are and connecting their biographical information to the biodiversity data they collect helps us contextualise their scientific work. We are particularly concerned with those people and communities involved in the collection and identification of biological specimens. People from herbaria and natural science museums have been collecting and preserving specimens from all over the world for more than 200 years. The problem is that many of these people are only known by unstandardized names written on specimen labels, often with only initials and without any biographical information. The process of identifying and linking individuals to their biographies enables us to improve the quality of the data held by collections while also quantifying the contributions of the often underappreciated people who collected and identified these specimens. This process improves our understanding of the history of collecting, and addresses current and future needs for maintaining the provenance of specimens so as to comply with national and international practices and regulations. In this talk we will outline the steps that collection managers, data scientists, curators, software engineers, and collectors can take to work towards fully disambiguated collections. With examples, we can show how they can use these data to help them in their work, in the evaluation of their collections, and in measuring the impact of individuals and organisations, local to global.