Update 17, November 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.

Museums complementing schools, connecting with youth

The Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose, USA runs a Discovery Youth programme connecting 10 - 14 year olds with the museum and creating meaningful exchanges and impacts.

Since its inception in 2001, the Discovery Youth programme has enabled youth to interact with museum professionals, providing adult role models whilst acknowledging and supporting the participants as valuable resources themselves. Beyond the multimedia projects they design and conduct, the programme has had other influences on the young community members which were captured through evaluation of the programme. Participants not only reported feeling more equipped for school, but also acknowledged that their behaviour, motivation, and health had changed, while their self-esteem and teamwork skills had also improved.

An excellent indicator of how museums and related institutes can positively impact on their communities!

A Logical Approach

Do you need to evaluate a programme and don’t know where to start? Are you planning or developing an educational programme?

The University of Wisconsin-Extension has an online course titled “Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models”. Containing two modules, the first module specifically guides practitioners in applying the ‘programme logic’ approach to evaluation, whilst the second shows it applied to a national community nutrition education programme.

Practical Guides for Science Communication

SciDev.net has recently published two new articles of interest to science communicators, and those who read science based work. The first is how to plan and write science stories, while the other outlines how to spot fraudulent scientific claims. In an era where there is so much uncertainty and debate over some scientific issues, these articles are quite timely.

They are part of a larger section dedicated to the provision of practical advice and tools to assist in the communication of science, as well as free images, news resources and links to other relevant material on the Internet.

Visit the science communication pages

Are you a leader?

A reminder to send through your thoughts on what strengths or features make certain science centres and museums leaders in the field. One leading science centre practitioner believes the following features are good indicators:

• Links or a co-operative model with the scientific community
• Serious visitor research
• Links with a University through programmes
• Innovative exhibits
• Great engagement of the visitors in experimentation

Do you agree or disagree with this list? Does your organisation have any of these features or links, or have you visited others that do? Share your thoughts with us!

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