Relations between science, technology, and society in science museums

Author(s)

Djana Contier

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2009-04-13

Examining board members

Martha Marandino; Mauricio Pietrocola Pinto de Oliveira; Moema de Rezende Vergara

• Advisor: Martha Marandino

Abstract

The present dissertation analyzes how science museums in Brazil explore the relations and mutual interferences between science, technology, and society, using education focused on science, technology, and society (STS), and public communication of science as its main references. The election of STS-focused education is related to the discussion about the importance of training critical citizens to face science and technology (S&T) issues, including the science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) approach. The election of the public communication of science is related to the debate about the change in ways of public participation in S&T decisions. Those two references challenge the institutions that work on the public-science interface to reconsider their objectives and purposes. Those questions get even more relevant if the growth and strengthening of science museums in Brazil in recent years are taken into account. For this project three exhibitions from different national science museums were selected and analyzed: Educação Ambiental [Environmental education], at the Museu de Ciências e Tecnologia/PUC-RS; Reprodução e genética [Reproduction and genetics], at the Biodiscovery Space at the Museu da Vida/Fiocruz; and Os Ciclos Biogeoquímicos e o Meio Ambiente [The biogeochemical cycles and the environment], at the Planet Earth and Environment Preservation at Estação Ciência/USP. In order to analyze these exhibitions, attributes that could qualify an exhibition as STS or STSE were composed. Those attributes were divided into three sets: the first applies to the attributes related to external social science issues; the second applies to the attributes related to internal social science issues; and the third applies to the attributes related to historical and philosophical debates. In this manner, the analysis was directed by identifying those attributes in the exhibit elements (objects, interactive displays, text panels, and other scenographic elements) in each of the exhibitions. The analysis leads to the idea of different ways to classify an exhibition as STS or STSE. A range from exhibitions that explore only one attribute in a particular manner to the ones in which all attributes are explored; between those two extremes there would be those exhibitions that bring only one attribute but in almost all exhibit elements; the ones which bring some attributes but only in one set; or, still further, those which explore many attributes but not all of them. Due to the difficulty of finding STS-themed exhibitions in the national scene, a discussion driven mainly by interviews with the exhibition elaborators, aimed at finding reasons and explanations for that low representativeness, was included in the analysis. (AU)