Update 5, October 2005

What contributions are science centres and museums making in your community? What best-practice approaches by science centres and museums make a difference to important government agendas such as increasing young people's interest in science careers or communicating challenging science topics to the public? This is a monthly update on a project focusing on such questions in the APEC region.

Young people’s attitudes to science and technology

Do young people think science and technology are important for society? Do they trust scientists? How do they view the environment? What do they think of their school experiences of science? What are their future work plans – do these include working with science and technology? Questions like these have been asked of 15-year-olds in about 40 countries (including 6 APEC economies) by the Norway-based Relevance of Science Education – ROSE – study, with both similarities and differences emerging among the countries involved and between girls and boys. Professor Svein Sjorberg has presented some of the results in various forums during 2005. Find out more.

Chinese teenagers and science & technology

The June 2005 PCST working symposium in Beijing, China featured several papers about how Chinese teenagers are becoming engaged with science and technology. The strategies used by different institutions include training teenagers for paid work as guides; using an exhibition + competition approach to educate and enthuse them about environmental issues; and bringing together representatives from several academic and community sectors to develop museum activities for teenagers.

Mobile science for ethnic minorities in China

Another PCST paper described the work of a travelling Science Popularization Team, which used traditional festivals, bazaars and fairs to build the scientific literacy of 13 different ethnic groups in a 1.66 million square kilometre region of north-west China. Find out more about these Chinese programs.

Online survey – a reminder

In our last issue, we asked you to share your experiences. For science centre and museum staff we ask about dealing with ‘challenging’ topics – topics that are intrinsically complex or difficult, topics where the current science knowledge is changing very rapidly, or controversial science-based issues. We haven't received a lot a lot of replies yet – maybe everyone’s busy getting ready for the ASTC conference that starts next week? For government officials we want to know about issues that you see as priorities for public awareness programs. We've extended the deadline to 31 October – please take a few minutes to give us your input.

New on our website

As well as more information about the items above, our website has other new links this month, including research reports from Australia (on the consequences of senior secondary students’ subject choices for further study and career options) and the UK (on the very positive museum experiences of over 20 000 school students and their teachers).

More on what’s new.

Contact

APEC Science Centre Impact Project Secretariat
Questacon - The National Science and Technology Centre
King Edward Terrace, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Email: apecproject@questacon.edu.au