Update 10, March 2006

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.

Bird Flu

Governments around the world are either already dealing with the impacts of bird flu or preparing plans to deal with the disease as it continues to spread. Museums and science centres are contributing to public education about this disease and its potential impacts – often through public lectures, but sometimes also through an exhibition, as at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, or through an online resource such as Antenna at the Science Museum in London, UK. (Please let us know if you are aware of more examples of science centre activity in this area.) Find out more.

Museums and the Web

Which museums or science centres have award-winning websites? How do museums build strong links between their physical exhibitions and their websites? What constitutes a good on-line learning experience? These questions and many more about the virtual world will be explored at the Museums and the Web conference in Albuquerque MN, USA, later this month. Even if you are not attending the conference, you can view outlines of the 2006 papers online already, as well as previous year’s conference proceedings. And look out for the full proceedings of this year’s conference. Find out more.

Science centres and museums tackle challenging topics

At the 2006 conference of the Asia Pacific Network of Science & Technology Centres (Perth, Western Australia, 9-13 May), the final day will be devoted to exploring how science centres and museums tackle challenging topics – those that are controversial, rapidly changing, or inherently difficult. Keynote speakers will talk about both what visitors expect of museums in this area, and about how science centres have dealt with – or could deal with – topics that might be controversial. Download the updated program and speaker abstracts (pdf, 34 kB)

New on our website

For a summary of what’s new on the website each month, check on the main news page of the site.

Contact

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