Learning Blog

Science Centres for the Next Generation

Science Centers for the next generation For years Science Center professionals have been trying to identify the next best thing for science centers. What idea will inspire the next generation science center? At the 2008 ECSITE conference in Budapest, Hungary a group of science center professionals from several countries challenged the perspective on what a science center is and what it can be. This session shifted attention to centers or organizations that offer science education without traditional infrastructure. Dr. Simon Gage, Director of the Edinburgh Science Festival asserted that the physical structures of a science center should be built only as a last resort. Typically a community will invest tens of millions of dollars to create a science center. But does this investment create the desired social outcomes in return? If your mission is education then there are alternative business models that should be considered. Dr. Gage contended that science centres rarely provide the best business model to achieve these outcomes. Running activities in other venues and locations will often allow you to achieve more outcomes for the same money. Session panelist Dr. Rebecca Crawford of SET Point Scotland proposed that impacting people with dynamic, low cost programs is a more effective use of resources SetPoint utilizes the facilities of Glasgow University for a base of operation. Dr. Barbara Streicher of the Science Center Netzwerk, attended the session Science without Centers. She said that this session validated the work and the concept advocated by the Austrian Network. We did not have the funding to support the development of a large center. So we looked at alternatives and have built a collaborative national network that serves a large number of clients without a typical science center facility. ScienceSouth is another example of a low infrastructure organization, having invested in a small temporary facility; it also uses mobile labs to provide programming to rural school districts. Our organization focused on delivering high quality programs rather than investing in hands on exhibits. By investing in a staff team and science equipment we can offer very diverse program which respond to our communities needs and interests. This low cost approach enables us to adapt to customer requests on a daily and weekly basis said ScienceSouth trustee Dr. John Kirby.