12

SCIENCE MUSEUMS RE-IMAGINED

Introduction
Science museums have a long and rich history – they have been with us for centuries –
and have been visited by millions worldwide. One can begin to glimpse (see Chap-
ter 3) how science museums have, over time, reinvented or transformed themselves,
thereby shifting and/or expanding their identities, goals, and functions. The emer-
gence of a fourth generation science museum (and all that this entails) is exciting,
and raises possibilities for promoting civic engagement, activism, and change –
through institutional directives in general, and exhibition practices in particular.
We have argued throughout the book that the time has come for science museums
to reconceptualize scientific literacy, embrace an array of science communication
models, and approach controversy. These goals can be enacted through a diverse set
of practices and spaces. We are well aware of the complexity and range of innova-
tive work that happens in science museums around educational programming for
schools and publics, revenue generation, sponsorship, curatorial work, design, staff
training, and more. In our work, we focus primarily on exhibitions, and in so doing
develop the idea of critical and agential exhibitions as one way to attend to a broader
set of institutional goals.
In this final chapter we return to the beginning and revisit, briefly, the theo-
retical landscape that informed our work. We consider (1) progressive views of
scientific literacy; (2) models of science communication and visitor engagement
patterns; and (3) controversy and its intersections with critical and agential exhibi-
tions. The chapter then moves to reflections upon the changing science museum
landscape, with a focus on fourth generation science museums, and six defining
key drivers. Specifically, we discuss how museums embracing this fourth generation
(through spaces and practices) can promote social transformation, productive strug-
gle, allyship, empathy, epistemic democracy, and act as a hybrid third space.
 Science museums re-imagined 229

Bringing it all together: fourth generation science

museums, criticality, and agency
This book is positioned primarily around what we have identified as fourth genera-
tion science museums, with a focus on exhibition practices, outcomes, and spaces.
We describe fourth generation science museums as those that are committed
to progressive views of scientific literacy; challenge ways of representing science
and, therein, dominant cultural and (scientific) narratives; articulate various disci-
plines; recognize the complex relationships that co-exist between science, technol-
ogy, society, and environment (STSE); prompt reflection and critical questioning;
engage with controversy; invite civic participation, reflexivity, and engagement; and
work towards agency and social change. Capturing these elements in exhibition
practices requires shifting dominant past practices, pedagogies, and, at times, ideolo-
gies. In the following sections, we summarize three key theoretical inspirations and
constructs that have shaped our understandings about what it means to engage in
this kind of transformative work in the science museum context: (1) critical sci-
entific literacy, (2) science communication models and visitor engagement, and (3)
controversy. Although presented as distinct ideas, in reality, they overlap and inform
one another. For example, it is impossible to discuss changing models of science
communication and visitor engagement without simultaneously acknowledging
how this relates to more progressive views of scientific literacy.

On critical scientific literacy

Calls for enhancing scientific literacy in the general public are the hallmark of sci-
ence museums everywhere – as they seek to inspire, promote interest in science and
technology, enhance attitudes towards science, teach, and entertain. However, we
are beginning to witness a movement in the science museum world from domi-
nant perspectives of scientific literacy, which have traditionally emphasized acqui-
sition and comprehension of concepts, to progressive views which articulate the
discourse of scientific literacy with issues of citizenship and socio-political engage-
ment (Chapter 1). These more progressive views align with what has been coined
critical scientific literacy (see, for example, Hine & Medvecky, 2015; Hodson, 2011;
Pedretti, 2002) and, also, with humanistic perspectives in science education (Dos
Santos, 2009). Hine and Medvecky (2015, p. 9) elegantly describe critical science
literacy as a focus on:

epistemic capacity, not epistemic content. Critical scientific literacy is about increasing
the capacity of individuals to understand, assess, and make sense of science and scien-
tific claims rather than being about increasing the amount of science or scientific claims
individuals know.

To this we add that epistemic capacity includes engagement in socio-political action –

that is, acquiring the skills to take appropriate, responsible, and effective action on
230 Revisiting science museums

science and technology issues of social, economic, political, environmental, and

moral-ethical concerns. Put in another way, science museums should commit to
more progressive views of scientific literacy that promote through their exhibitions
and practice, responsible citizenship, critique, and action. These exhibition practices
are captured in and through the critical and agential typologies that we described in
Chapter 3. Indeed, we are beginning to see examples of critical and agential exhibi-
tions emerging (slowly, but surely) around the world.
Equally important are progressive views of scientific literacy that include issues
of tolerance, respect, social justice, environmental justice, informed decision making,
and informed agency as features of scientifically literate individuals and collectives
(Bencze, 2017; Roth & Barton, 2004). Notions of individual and collective respon-
sibility suggest agency and engagement across a spectrum that includes personal,
familial, social, local, and global contexts. To further these aspirations, Henriksen
and Frøyland (2000) suggest that science museums consider goals such as becoming
arenas for public debate, becoming dialogue institutions, and contributing to the
resolution of global challenges. Accordingly, this can be done if some conditions
are met, including the presentation of relevant, dynamic, and controversial socio-
scientific topics that cut across science, technology, society, and environment and
the articulation of different communication strategies that provide audiences with
opportunities to enact or apply aspects of criticality and agency.

On models of science communication

Science museums are in the business of communicating science to the general
public. Historically, that communication has been primarily reflective of one-way
models that are characterized by a top-down transfer of knowledge, unidirectional,
flowing from specialist to non-specialist, emphasizing knowledge acquisition (Buc-
chi, 2008; Bucchi & Trench, 2014) and steeped in a deficit archetype. Recent years
have seen a move to employ more dialogic and participatory forms of communica-
tion, in order to engage and empower publics in different ways.
In Chapter 2, we developed an integrated framework for science communica-
tion where we merged the views of Bucchi (2008) and Levinson (2010) in an
effort to establish relationships between science communication and democratic
participation in science and technology, and to serve as a lens for (re)examining sci-
ence museum practices. This integrated framework includes the following models
of science communication: deficit (transferring knowledge); dialogue (discussing
implications of research, deliberating about context-oriented problems, making
decisions); participation (achieving scientific literacy as collective learning, co-
creating knowledge, setting the aims and shaping the agenda of research); and dis-
sent and conflict/action (developing positive feelings of agency, attaining political
understanding and action for altering the agenda of research, generating social and
political transformations). By extension, these different models of science commu-
nication entail a scale or continuum where visitors’ involvement and engagement
with museum activities can range from passive to active.
 Science museums re-imagined 231

Before leaving the integrated framework behind, we wish to add a final note
here about the deficit model as traditionally understood and used. The problem, in
our view, is three-fold: an overreliance on exhibitions that are primarily one-way
transfers of knowledge; assumptions that visitors have little or no knowledge or
experience to contribute; and an oversimplification of what the deficit model could
entail. At different places throughout the book and particularly through the case
studies we presented in Chapters 5 to 8 (recall especially the exhibitions Preventing
Youth Pregnancy and Mental Health: Mind Matters), we offered a reconceptualization
of the deficit model based on the following features and ideas: (1) visitors have
knowledge and competencies that enhance and/or complete expert knowledge
(Bucchi, 2008); (2) the knowledge to be presented/displayed in exhibitions needs
to be robust, relevant, and useful for visitors (Levinson, 2010); (3) the information
provided through the exhibits can support and scaffold active engagement pro-
moted through practices such as dialogue; and (4) one of the purposes of science
museums is to increase participants’ knowledge and scientific understanding of a
particular topic – and that is okay!
Science museums are being recognized (and are beginning to see themselves)
as places that can potentially establish two-way communication approaches
(Storksdieck & Falk, 2004); promote dialogue and participation (Mazda,
2004); embrace socio-scientific issues as part of their exhibition practices (Koll-
mann, Reich, Bell, & Goss, 2013); create more equitable relations with visitors
(Aguirre, 2014); and foster scientific citizenship (Hine & Medvecky, 2015). Science
museums that employ a range of science communication and public engagement
models to promote educational and democratic participation open up possibilities
for creating exhibitions and spaces that are critical and agential in both form and
function.

On controversy
Increasingly, controversy is emerging as an important and socially relevant feature of
the science museum landscape (Cameron & Kelly, 2010; Davies & Horst, 2016). We
argue throughout this book that it is the responsibility of museums to engage with
sensitive, complex socio-scientific topics that may challenge peoples’ ideologies or
beliefs; present alternative view points and positions; and compel action. Although
we recognize that engaging with controversy can be risky for institutions and there
can be resistance (Chapter 11), such apprehensions can be counter-balanced by
arguments for relevance, critical scientific literacy, and the need for public institu-
tions to “take an active and important role in contemporary societies as places for
conversations” (Cameron & Kelly, 2010, p. 55). We cannot be content to simply
tell safe stories.
How the idea of controversy is understood and transformed into practice
requires unpacking. In Chapter 4, we spent considerable time mapping this com-
plex terrain. A review of the literature quickly reveals that controversy is a textured,
complex, and messy construct. It can be described, for example, as providing a way
232 Revisiting science museums

to study science in the making (Latour, 1987) and other unsettled and/or unfinished
science. Through yet another lens, controversy can be viewed as eliciting conflict-
ing aesthetic, moral-ethical, cultural, religious, socio-political, economic, and/or
environmental beliefs, values, and feelings (Hodson, 2013). In practice, we captured
these different perspectives through the idea of science museum exhibitions that
are about controversy and those that generate controversy (see Meyer, 2009, 2010).
The distinction here comes from controversies that are embedded in the topic itself
(i.e., internal to science) and those generated as part of visitors’ responses, involving
emotions, values, beliefs, and moral systems (i.e., external to science).
Exhibitions that are about or that generate controversy are reflected in critical
and agential installations. These kinds of exhibitions move beyond the pedagogical
typology that seeks to teach mainly through the reification of established scientific
knowledge, to exhibitions that contest knowledge and open up spaces for debate,
dialogue, and democratic participation around contemporary science and technol-
ogy issues. As Janes (2010, p. 328) writes, “ambiguity should not be feared”.
To summarize, the presence of critical and agential installations in science muse-
ums move beyond the well-established norms and exhibition practices that are
primarily pedagogical and/or experiential in purpose (see Chapter 3). We wish to
emphasize that we are not suggesting critical and agential exhibitions replace past
practices. Instead, we argue that science museums should develop installations that
reflect a number of exhibition typologies – pedagogical, experiential, critical, and
agential. In our view, the real problem is the absence of criticality and agency as
part of the visitor experience in these public spaces. Furthermore, although pre-
sented as linear (and possibly hierarchical), these exhibition typologies intersect and
inform one another. Indeed, critical and agential exhibitions include pedagogical
and experiential aspects to their design, production, and consumption.

Fourth generation science museums: key drivers

Science museums continue to ask these questions: Who are we? Who do we serve?
How do we serve? These are important questions, and central to the larger narra-
tive of science museum practices and goals. If science museums choose to embrace
critical scientific literacy, communication models that are more democratic, and
approach controversy and socio-scientific subject matter, then what, potentially,
can fourth generation science museums be/become and/or embody? We now step
back and extend our understandings of fourth generation science museums – their
spaces and practices – through six defining drivers.

Science museums as hubs of change/transformation

Alongside traditional goals of collecting, preserving, and communicating (‘finished’
science, for example), fourth generation science museums can be places for activism,
reflecting more contemporary and forward-looking goals that speak to present-day
museums’ changing landscapes. Janes and Sandell (2019, p. 1) write about “new
 Science museums re-imagined 233

and divergent expressions of the museum’s inherent power as a force for good”. In
a time of, for example, environmental degradation, climate change, food security
issues, waste management problems, digital revolutions, fake news, and compet-
ing political discourses, science museums can become another player and voice
for social, environmental, and political transformation ( Janes, 2011; Ng, Ware, &
Greenberg, 2017). The notion of museum mindfulness is particularly helpful here.
Mindfulness is described as deliberately paying attention to issues we ordinarily
ignore, being aware of what is happening around us (locally, globally) and how we
react to those events, and finally being cognizant of what we are doing and why
( Janes, 2010). Janes further argues, rightly, that science museums need not forsake
the traditions that have historically characterized and sustained them, but rather
take on the mantel of mindfulness to reconsider their role in broader society.
Interestingly, in the science museum world, we are beginning to see advocacy
work and calls from around the world that reflect critical and agential perspectives.
Note, for example, the proliferation of:

1. international and national organizations (e.g., European Network of Science

Centres and Museums, International Committee for Museums and Collec-
tions of Science and Technology, International Council of Museums, Asso-
ciation of Science and Technology Centres, and the Brazilian Association of
Science Centres and Museums);
2. coalitions (e.g., Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice, Museum as Site for
Social Action); and
3. policy statements and declarations (e.g., the 2008 Science Centre World Con-
gress Declaration; the 2017 Tokyo Protocol; the 2017 Mechlan Declaration).

These different platforms share common themes: embracing critical scientific

literacy as an institutional goal; promoting social inclusion; strengthening public
engagement, participation, and action with science and technology; and recogniz-
ing the need for collective action to achieve sustainable development goals.

Science museums as places for productive struggle

The notion of productive struggle, at first glance, runs counter to images of science
museums as fun places where amusement, entertainment, and the joys of discov-
ery are the order of the day. Ambiguity, dissonance, and complexity are not what
people necessarily want when they visit a science centre. And yet, it is precisely on
this point that an interesting paradox emerges: the public expects information to
be provided, a ‘conclusion’ to be reached, and fun to be had – while at the same
time there is some agreement (by staff and visitors alike) that it is within the pur-
view of these public institutions to also address controversy and complex issues (see
Achiam & Sølberg, 2016; Cameron & Kelly, 2010; Navas Iannini & Pedretti, 2017).
The concept of productive struggle provides an interesting way forward as we think
about staff and visitor experiences, and the inherent tensions that emerge.
234 Revisiting science museums

Productive struggle implies that people (in this case, visitors and museum
staff ) are engaged, thinking critically, and probably experiencing some emo-
tional disequilibrium (D’Mello, Dale, & Graesser, 2012; Kapur, 2016). Indeed,
affect and emotional engagement is central to this process. At an institutional
level, productive struggle occurs, as we saw, throughout our case studies (Chap-
ters 5–8). Productive struggle can be problematic and uncomfortable as museum
staff negotiate, for example, new exhibitions that approach controversy, decisions
around content to be included/excluded or privileged/not privileged, sponsor-
ing of public events, funding issues, and institutional positioning with respect
to the public gaze. We argue that these moments are necessary and provide
opportunities for institutional growth, re-prioritizing of goals, and re-branding.
For the visitors, productive struggle is equally real. Recall from Chapter 11, the
discussion centred on the importance of engaging visitors in ‘productive discom-
fort’. In moments of productive struggle or discomfort, there is a need to balance
feeling hopeless, fearful, or overwhelmed with feelings of hope and possibility.
Productive struggle occurs mainly within the context of visitor interactions with
exhibitions, particularly those that are critical and agential in nature (consider
visitors’ experiences in A Question of Truth, Preventing Youth Pregnancy, and Mental
Health: Mind Matters). Through different stories, narratives, messaging, and issues
at play, people may feel discomfort due to personal views, experiences, moral and
value systems, and cultural norms (recall Body Worlds and The Story of the Heart
and Body Worlds: Animal Inside Out) – all of which impact/inform the way visi-
tors interact and experience the exhibition. It is, therefore, not only about the
content of the exhibition but also about how different people engage differently
with that content – allowing for empathy and connections to ‘others’ to emerge
(more will be said about this later).
Fourth generation science museums can be places to foster difficult conversa-
tions and move visitors to listen, engage, and feel. Productive discomfort reminds
us that struggles (be they with content, issues, complexity, value systems, and/or
cultural mores, etc.) can be positive, and in fact help us work through difficult ideas
and conflicting beliefs in meaning-making and sense-making experiences.

Science museums as sites for allyship

Ng et al. (2017) introduce the powerful notion of allyship in the (science) museum
world, as a blueprint for attending to, and enacting, diversity and inclusive practices.
According to these authors, allyship is defined as

a way of working together, across multiple identities, to create work environments,

programming, and exhibition content that embraces all humanity, specifically racialized
and marginalized peoples, from a social justice lens. . . . Our definition of allyship con-
siders both audience-facing museum work – curation, education, programming – and
internal museum work including working conditions and hiring.
(2017, pp. 143–144)
 Science museums re-imagined 235

The construct of allyship begins to create a discourse for understanding museums

as contested sites, as inclusive spaces, and again, as places for social well-being. Ng
et al. (2017) describe allyship as (1) understanding that it is not about themselves,
(2) practicing active listening and self-reflection, (3) always learning, (4) a verb – it is
conscious and active, and (5) being able to take direction well. This is difficult work,
and includes a number of lived practices and experiences.
We know that science museums historically exclude marginalized, underserved,
disenfranchised, and disempowered populations. Science museums are viewed by
many as alienating places – abstract, void of context and sterile; a place that is inac-
cessible and not for them; a place that privileges whiteness and maintains the status
quo. How then, can science museums begin to decolonize themselves, and (re)build
community relationships? Potential pathways for not only talking about but enacting
principles of empathy and equity in real and meaningful ways include establish-
ing partnerships and networks with different communities, organizations, non-­
governmental organizations, departments of education, and universities; consulting
with communities; building cultural competencies (often through meaningful and
sustained staff professional development); encouraging community participation
and community acceptance; and learning from other science museums (Dawson,
2014a, 2014b; Feinstein, 2017; Janes & Sandell, 2019). To that end, Dawson (2014a)
provides an equity framework for science museums based on infrastructure access,
literacy, and community acceptance. Similarly, we advocate building experiences
(and by implication, exhibitions) that are inclusive, meaningful, and relevant for all
visitors. Furthermore, Dawson (2014b) argues for museum practices that can sup-
port cross-cultural science learning opportunities (again, more will be said about
this later). At the heart of allyship are empathy – recognizing and sharing the feelings
of others to better understand and (re)purpose the work of museums – and equity –
pursuing justice and fairness through institutional practices and exhibition content
(Feinstein, 2017; Ng et al., 2017). Feinstein (2017, p. 537) concludes:

Those who wish to make equity a guiding principle for the future should understand
that it leads them, sooner or later, to a fundamental choice about what they do, about
what science learning means for museums, and what it means to ‘see for yourself, know
for yourself.’

Science museums as spaces to develop empathy

Of late, there has been an increase in publications, research, and science museum
practices that speak to science museums as places that can and should promote
empathy through different pathways (see, for example, Gokcigdem, 2016; Janes &
Sandell, 2019; Ng et al., 2017). In the forward to Gokcigdem’s (2016) Fostering
Empathy Through Museums, Koster describes the book as being an “unusual but
timely contribution to the body of literature serving the entire museum field” (2016,
p. vii). And although museums may find the idea of empathy jarring at first, and
indeed rarely consider empathy as an outcome (Koster, 2016), its time has arrived.
236 Revisiting science museums

Empathy is described as recognizing and sharing the feelings of others (includ-

ing distress) to better understand their situations, even if we do not share those
feelings and/or situations (Koster, 2016). Recall the Brazilian exhibition Prevent-
ing Youth Pregnancy and the Finnish exhibition Heureka Goes Crazy (later renamed
Mental Health: Mind Matters in the U.S.A.) that attend to the complex and sensitive
socio-scientific issues of teenage pregnancy and sexual practices and mental health,
respectively. These are two stunning examples of museums’ deliberate and explicit
attempts to promote empathy, and by implication social change and transforma-
tion, through their exhibition practices. Both of these exhibits call on the visitor
to engage critically, emotionally, and sometimes in the place of ‘other’ to develop
empathy, compassion, and understandings (in terms of both knowledge and feelings).
Looking beyond the production of exhibitions, we note the emergence of other
practices that include coalitions, organizations, and spaces, all of which seem to
share a common thread – advocating for empathy, social impact, and social action
in museums today (Murawski, 2016). Interestingly, these practices, calls, and move-
ments are often located in history museums and in the arts. Examples include The
Empathetic Museum (The Empathetic Museum, n.d.), a group of museum profes-
sionals who use an empathy lens to frame their work; the Center for Empathy and
the Visual Arts within the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Center for Empathy and
the Visual Arts, n.d.), which focuses on research and practices that foster empathy
and global awareness through art; and the Empathy Museum (Empathy Museum,
n.d.), a series of traveling participatory art projects with a goal to view the world
through others’ perspectives. We suggest that it is equally compelling and neces-
sary to locate empathy in the context of science education (in formal and non-
formal settings) in part because of a legacy of presenting science as objective, as
truth, as fixed, and void of social, environmental, political, and ethical circumstances.
Fourth generation science museums can develop spaces for exploring and building
empathy through critical and agential exhibitions that invite visitors to engage, feel
deeply, and better understand others.

Science museums as epistemological spaces

In this section, we focus on the science in science museums, and revisit issues related
to (re)presentations of science through exhibition practices, status of scientific
knowledge, and visitor meaning-making. Historically, science museums have pre-
sented science as unproblematic, authoritarian, sterile, conclusive, and without con-
text. These long-established traditions of exhibiting ‘truth’ and the ‘facts’ reflect
scientific knowledge that has been historically White, Western-oriented, and
broadly privileged as a knowledge system. These observations beg questions: Are
there other voices? Where are these other voices? Whose knowledge (and experi-
ences) are being silenced? What epistemologies are being privileged? We suggest
that fourth generation science museums are proving to be spaces that can disrupt
traditional science narratives, honour a diversity of voices, and begin to share ‘epis-
temic authority’.
 Science museums re-imagined 237

Evidenced by our case studies and practices from around the world, science
museums are beginning to attend to “unsettled and unfinished science” (Hine &
Medvecky, 2015) and ‘hot science’ (Meyer, 2009, 2010), which can be messy, com-
plex, and often fraught with opposing and/or irreconcilable values and other differ-
ences. By engaging with socio-scientific subject matter, hot topics, taboo subjects,
and controversy, museums position science within a web of scientific, technological,
societal, environmental, cultural, and political contexts, and provide opportunities
for visitors to engage with “science in the making” (Latour, 1987). In so doing, the
epistemological foundations of museums and science as objective and authoritarian
sources of knowledge are interrogated and challenged (Macdonald, 1998). Fur-
thermore, political realities and the proliferation of social media technologies add
to the growing discourse that contests notions of science museums as purveyors of
scientific truth:

We live in a complex and networked political world, where the idea of shared values,
common meanings, disciplinary and institutional authority is now under question. . . .
The social, cultural impact and networking capabilities of media technologies and their
uses in emergent cultural conversations between museums, audiences and across a vari-
ety of social spaces also requires investigations.
(Cameron & Kelly, 2010, p. 6)

Feinstein (2017, p. 534) argues that “museum science, like school science, has been
developed with a particular group of people in mind”. This is powerful and danger-
ous, and brings us back to earlier conversations about equity, inclusion, and allyship.
It also says something about learning and meaning-making. Science museums are
heralded worldwide as places for learning science. Yet, research and experience tell
us that typically, science learning (in schools and non-school settings) are based on
a particular set of norms, conventions, and the experiences of particular groups of
people (Dawson, 2014b; Feinstein, 2017). It can be more difficult and less reward-
ing for visitors engaging in cultural practices that are unfamiliar to them, or which
contradict their own practices (Rogoff, 2003). Indeed, as Sjöström and Eilks (2017,
p. 67) write, “there is awareness that our view of scientific content knowledge is
dependent on our culture, for example our norms, values and worldviews, and it
is dependent on the time we are living in”. These realities provide further impetus
for re-thinking science museum practices and spaces. If we adopt the notion of sci-
ence museums as epistemological spaces, then we can begin to imagine providing a
range of science learning experiences that honour a diversity of perspectives, expe-
riences, and knowledge systems, and that engage the learner in the co-production
of knowledge.

Science museum as a hybrid third space

The notion of a hybrid third space (Barton & Tan, 2009), when applied to sci-
ence museums (Stocklmayer, Rennie, & Gilbert, 2010), is particularly useful to
238 Revisiting science museums

our discussions of an emerging fourth generation science museum. A hybrid third

space (which is tied deeply to our earlier conversations about epistemology) can
be defined as a space where “everyday resources are integrated with disciplinary
learning to construct new texts and new [scientific] literacy practices that merge
the different aspects of knowledge and ways of knowing offered in a variety of
spaces” (Moje et al., 2004, p. 44). A science museum as a hybrid third space rec-
ognizes the knowledge, wisdom, experiences, and learnings that visitors bring to
their meaning-making in confluence with established theoretical foundations of
science.
Reconceptualizing the science museum as such a hybrid third space strengthens
the role of museums as civic and epistemic agents, where audiences are valued co-
creators of knowledge. Prioritizing viewpoints and experiences over the ‘language’
of the object (or of science itself ) reflects a broader movement where institutions
place visitors and their communities (and what they bring) at the centre of their
function (Black, 2012). It also allows for a myriad of exhibition practices and spaces
that open up powerful and creative opportunities for dialogue, participation, dis-
sent/conflict, and agency.

Conclusion
What are we to make of these six defining drivers of fourth generation science
museums? In our view they bring relevance to science museums, push the status
quo, and move us to more contemporary discussions about how criticality and
agency can be part of the science museum landscape. We firmly believe that sci-
ence museums and their exhibitions can become places for change and transforma-
tion, productive struggle, allyship, empathy, epistemic democracy, and can serve as a
hybrid third space. However, re-imagining institutional goals, spaces, and practices
is difficult (but necessary) work and requires “a turn away from the self-referential
museum functions of the past, towards a more complete externalisation of pur-
pose” (Achiam & Sølberg, 2016, p. 18). In other words, it is no longer desirable
or sufficient for science museums to exist for only their own sakes, but instead
must embrace their active mutuality within the societies in which they exist. We
acknowledge that fourth generation science museums, alongside side their critical
and agential exhibitions, carry their own set of challenges and narratives, particularly
when approaching controversy. However, our case studies and conversations with
museum professionals around the world provide compelling evidence and inspi-
ration that science museums can navigate these challenges and embrace broader
institutional and visitor goals.
Over the years, a number of metaphors have been used to describe the science
museum (and by extension, its purpose): temple and forum (Cameron, 1971), agora
(Einsiedel & Einsiedel, 2004), and mall ( Janes & Sandell, 2019). These metaphors
capture and help us to understand the changing identities and shifting functions of
science museums. As we conclude our work here, we find the metaphor of garden
to be helpful – as both a noun and a verb (see Figure 12.1).
 Science museums re-imagined 239

FIGURE 12.1 Display about gardening, local and seasonal food, and environmental impacts
at the Ken Spencer Science Park (Science World, Vancouver, Canada).
Source: Courtesy Ana Maria Navas Iannini.

A garden is a place where diversity, struggle, growth, and transformation co-exist

and thrive, but this does not happen on its own. Gardeners attend to their gardens –
collecting, preserving, displaying, arranging, and co-planting – to nurture and main-
tain beautiful, healthy, and sustainable gardens. Science museums, with their rich
and diverse goals, can similarly be tended so that they grow and flourish, becoming
spaces that not only address the wonders and beauty of science but also represent
science as complex, dynamic, reflexive, participatory, and controversial.
240 Revisiting science museums

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Part 3

REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

IN CHAPTER 12, WE SUGGESTED THAT FOURTH

GENERATION SCIENCE MUSEUMS CAN BE:

• Hubs for change/transformation

• Places for productive struggle
• Sites for allyship
• Spaces to develop empathy
• Epistemological spaces
• Hybrid third spaces

What is your response to the six drivers discussed, in the context of science
museums and their exhibition practices? Are these drivers feasible?

Activity 1 – Imagining metaphors for science museums

Consider the metaphors that have been used to describe science museums: temple,
forum, agora, mall, garden. Do any of these metaphors particularly appeal to you? Why?
Can you think of any new metaphors that might better reflect (or expand upon)
the six drivers we presented? How might your new metaphor further develop the
roles and goals of science museums?

Activity 2 – Moving visitors to develop empathy

We described one of the main goals of the exhibition Mental Health: Mind Matters
(MHMM; see Chapter 8) as developing empathy. Indeed, empathy seems to be gain-
ing momentum as a goal for science museums and their exhibitions, worldwide.
Some of the curators in our research spoke of how important it was for them to
help visitors to develop empathy and to care – not just about the issues raised
but also about others’ lived experiences and perspectives. Can you imagine a new
installation or activity for MHMM that could help visitors to develop empathy?
What about for other science exhibitions you have visited – is there room for
considering and/or promoting empathy? In small groups, record and/or draw your
ideas for this imagined installation or activity. Describe its features and how it might
further promote empathy.

Activity 3 – Re-writing a museum’s mission statement

Imagine that you work in a small local science museum that, to date, has predomi-
nantly displayed taxidermic collections and offered guided visits. Your team has
 Science museums re-imagined 243

recently received a significant government grant to renovate the museum, add new
galleries, and produce additional educational programming that could engage the
community in new and different ways. Your working group has been asked to
update the museum’s mission statement. Currently, the statement is:

Fostering curiosity and spreading a passion for science.

In small groups, brainstorm and write a statement that reflects what your group
thinks is important, and what you envision your institution could be about, do, or
foster. You can draw on any of the six key drivers, or other ideas and constructs
that have been discussed throughout the book. Keep in mind that your new state-
ment should be a hallmark for future programming that your institution is going
to develop!