Dealing with Socio-Scientific Issues in Science Exhibition: a Literature Review
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Dealing with Socio-Scientific Issues in Science Exhibition: a Literature Review Ayon Yun 1 & Chungkon Shi 2 & Bong Gwan Jun 2
# Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
In this paper, the authors focus on theoretical discussions regarding the socioscientific issues based exhibition, whose importance has become greater for science centers in the past two decades, but has no clear definition. We examine the background of the socio-scientific issues based exhibition, including its scope and qualities, through analyzing previous research from the past two decades to propose a guide to help understand the socio-scientific issues based exhibition. As a result, we found that (1) the discussion of socio-scientific issues in science centers began with a large paradigm shift in the identity of science centers, (2) a socio-scientific issues based exhibition should be designed with a focus on increasing public engagement with science and relevance science centers in society, and (3) it should convey various kinds of information contextually and make visitors share their own opinions with others in an exhibition space. Moreover, we propose three characteristics of a socio-scientific issues based exhibition (critical reflection, contextualized information, and opinion sharing), to provide curators a direction for a socioscientific issues based exhibition planning. Keywords Socio-scientific issues . Science centers in twenty-first century . Exhibit design . Public engagement . Critical reflection
* Bong Gwan Jun [email protected] Ayon Yun [email protected] Chungkon Shi [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Research in Science Education
Introduction As the impact of science and technology on society has become greater, the call for science centers to cover socio-scientific issues1 has been constantly raised. That is why increased social issues related to science and technology require science centers to put their efforts in fostering scientific literacy to the public (Bradburne 1998; Koster 1999; Pedretti 2002; Rodari and Merzagora 2007; Quistgaard and Kahr-Hojland 2010; Cameron 2012). Despite consensus on this, it is difficult to find exhibitions that deal with socio-scientific issues in science centers. Many science center staff members have pointed out that there are numerous challenges in socio-scientific issues based exhibition planning. For example, the uncertainty of socio-scientific issues conflicts with the attributes of an exhibition that should deliver factual information and unchanging knowledge (Cameron 2010). Constantly changing contents also seem to contradict with a long-lasting exhibition (Gregory and Millar 1998; Macdonald 2002). In addition, it is difficult to find appropriate objects related to socioscientific issues to exhibit or to design hands-on exhibitions. Moreover, those exhibitions require a lengthy text for explanation (Mintz 1995; Pedretti 2007). Therefore, studies on the socio-scientific issues based exhibition for the past two decades have focus
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