Computer science education is rapidly being recognized as essential for all students to develop into successful citizens of the 21st century. A diverse group of stakeholders, including educators, business and industry, policymakers, and parents all agree on the importance of computer science. Significant workforce needs in particular are driving the push for computer science education. In comparison to all other U.S. job categories, computing is projected to have the largest percent growth between 2014 and 2024. And this projected growth may not even entirely capture the full number of
How did industrial museums cross the Atlantic? When the first American museums of science and industry were created in the 1920s, they looked to Europe in order to import what was seen at that time as a burgeoning cultural institution. In this article, I look at this process of appropriation through an analysis of the changing perceptions of European industrial museums as expressed in the reports, surveys and books written by the curators, directors and trustees of the New York Museum of Science and Industry. I will pay particular attention to the 1927 film Museums of the New Age, documenting
The Special Challenge of Exhibits on Evolution is a summative report that reviews published research on how visitors to science and natural history museums perceive evolution and exhibits on evolution.
This article concerns the conservation of historic doped fabric aeroplanes in the static museum setting of the Science Museum’s Flight gallery. It reviews historic sources, primarily archival and scientific research papers, to examine what doped fabric aeroplanes are made from, and why these materials were selected. It also discusses current conservation methods used for treating tears in the doped fabric covering of aeroplanes, and considers the ethical and practical limitations of these practices. An overview of the doped fabric aircraft collection currently held by the Science Museum is
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ben RegelJannicke LangfeldtLouisa BurdenMary Ryan
This essay explores the extent to which residues of the practices inherent in nineteenth-century science lecture-demonstrations from the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) are evident in contemporary forms of Science Museum Group (SMG) Explainer presentations. The discipline of Performance Studies offers a number of models to discuss such a consideration and this essay draws particularly on the connected, transgenerational theories of vertical transmission, embodied knowledge and intertheatricality. Specifically, the focus is on three notable scientists, selected here for their particular
In December the Science Museum will open Mathematics: The Winton Gallery. The new gallery tells mathematical stories in relation to a broad spectrum of fundamental human concerns. One of the key exhibits is a newly acquired machine for modelling storm surges in the North Sea. Designed by Japanese engineer Shizuo Ishiguro, the object offers a way to explore the far-reaching impact and relevance of mathematical work.
Among the exhibits at the 2016 Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Science Museum, London, was one that purported to illustrate Leonardo’s experiments on friction. The models involved were the work of Giovanni Canestrini (1893–1975) who contributed to the 1939 and 1953 Leonardo exhibitions in Milan. This article discusses the original sources and history of these models, in the light of recent research into Leonardo’s work on friction. It concludes that, while being relevant to Leonardo’s study of mechanics, these models seriously misrepresent his experimental investigations of friction.
Trust in science is, to a considerable extent, the outcome of communication. News and online media in particular are important mediators of trust in science. So far, however, conceptual works on mediated trust in science are lacking. Taking a cue from Weingart & Guenther, this commentary proposes a concept of mediated trust in science and for its measurement, and shows where it could be used in the science of science communication.
Factors that influence reception and use of information are represented in this koru model of science communication using the metaphor of a growing plant. Identity is central to this model, determining whether an individual attends to information, how it is used and whether access to it results in increased awareness, knowledge or understanding, changed attitudes or behaviour. In this koru model, facts are represented as nutrients in the soil; the matrix influences their availability. Communication involves reorganisation of facts into information, available via channels represented as roots
This study applies social network analysis to explore the role that one science festival has played in building the state's STEM learning ecosystem. It examines the breadth and extent of collaboration among STEM educators and their partners, reviewing past and present partnerships across 449 events during the 2015 festival. Three case studies provide in-depth illustrations of partnerships. These findings represent an important step towards (a) mapping a STEM learning ecosystem, and (b) trying to understand how a festival affects the ecosystem itself. Together, study results demonstrate how the
This paper contains an overview of the programmes currently existing in Latin America to train science communicators. For such purpose, only postgraduate courses held regularly were considered in the study. Twenty-two programmes meeting such requirement were identified in five countries, 65% of which were in fact established over the past ten years. They present a lot of diversity in terms of admittance requirements, goals, contents, approaches, duration and graduation requirements. However, all of them share the same effort, aiming to offer specific contents in the area of science
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Luisa MassaraniElaine ReynosoSandra MurrieloAyelen Castillo
This issue of JCOM presents some interesting challenges relating to trust and the media ecology that supports science communication. Weingart and Guenther have organised a set of commentaries considering the issue of trust and media from different points of view, by asking for responses to their paper 'Science Communication and the Issue of Trust'. The commentaries focus on traditional and social media and the actors that contribute to media content, though they do not consider 'paid for' content (also known as advertising), which is the subject of a paper by Silva and Simonian also published