In a rapidly changing world, science centers must be agile and ready to innovate even in the most challenging times. In fact, demanding circumstances can be the catalysts that inspire centers to serve their communities in new ways while preserving a consistent vision. In this issue, we look at instances in which science centers have responded quickly to challenging situations, including economic difficulties and natural disasters.

Contents
• Agility and the Rapid Pace of Change, by Nancy Stueber
• Creating Our Future, by John Swanson
• Outreach that Empowers, by Megan Dickerson
• Discounted Prices, Increased Attendance, by Kristin Priscella
• What’s the Buzz? Bringing Breaking News into the Science Museum, by Liza Pryor
• Managing Organizational Change, by Chris Wallace, Joe Hastings, Marcelo Knobel, and David E. Chesebrough
• The Balancing Act Between Focus and Flexibility, by Jennifer Martin

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The National Weather Service said, “We anticipate flood cresting at 24 1/2 feet.” That’s what was going through my head as I studied the flood wall, built for a 24-foot crest, and the Cedar River beyond. That flood wall stood just 50 feet from the back wall of the Cedar Rapids Science Station in Iowa. It was 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 11, 2008. We had spent the day moving servers, tools, and the more valued exhibits out of our two basements. I knew our ground floor was at about the same level as the flood wall, so I thought, “The worst will be two flooded basements and maybe some water on the first floor.” Almost as an afterthought, I told everyone to move their computers to the tops of their desks.

Late Friday night into early Saturday morning, the river crested at 31 feet, seven feet higher than that flood wall—and 11 feet above the previous flood record, set in 1929. On Sunday, officials announced that the waters were starting to recede. We were allowed back into our three-building complex on Tuesday, June 17, although workers would still be pumping water out of the basements for four days.

I wasn’t prepared for what I found inside. As we opened the door, the humidity and musty aroma overwhelmed us. Every horizontal surface had a fine coating of what I later learned was the best part of Iowa’s marvelous topsoil, which will take many, many years to restore—one of the lesser known, but sinister, consequences of a flood. Until we left footprints, the carpeted floor looked like an ice rink, smooth and glistening with a skim-coat of mud.

But what struck us most was that nothing was where it belonged. Cases and counters had either collapsed or moved. You could probably produce an acceptable Ph.D. dissertation on the currents and whirlpools created inside a building by swirling flood waters. Entering our offices, we found 50-pound wooden tables hanging from partition walls and file cabinets tipped over. And those computers on the desks—well, that only meant they had been under three feet of water rather than seven.

As we worked through the Science Station, making quick decisions on what was salvageable, I came across a walnut plaque. Badly warped and lying in the muck, the inscribed words caught my eye:

The Best Way To Predict Your Future Is To Create It.

I have no idea how the plaque came to hang on our wall, but I immediately recognized the power in the words of management consultant Peter Drucker. We had the quote made into a banner for the front wall of our building, where it remains, a reminder to a devastated city that even disasters can have silver linings.

It took two weeks and $200,000 to clean out, dry out, and disinfect the building and its contents. Although 90 percent of our exhibits were ruined, there was no structural damage and only minimal exterior damage to the building. When we’re ready to rebuild, it will take nearly $2 million to repair walls, air handling, plumbing, and electrical damage.

The building is now tight, safe, and dry, but we won’t rebuild until we complete a visioning process and know more about how the city will deal with future flood threats. It will take between 7 and 12 years for the city to complete flood prevention planning and build new floodwalls and levees. In our own master planning, we will need to determine whether we will rebuild in our original location or relocate to another site. In addition, we are considering whether to share space or resources with another institution. One possibility is to partner with a local education agency to provide science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education for students and training for teachers in our building.

Science Camp and perseverance

Even before we re-entered the buildings, we realized we had another challenge. We were three days into our eight-week summer Science Camp program when the evacuation order went out. The camp is very popular and is one of our most important revenue sources.

At such a time, the inherent good in people emerges and a spirit arises that I can’t properly express. My church graciously allowed us to use its multiclassroom addition for the camp. They also provided a kitchen, where we stored supplies and parceled out snacks. Four days after the flood emergency was declared “over,” we resumed our Science Camp program.

Still, I was worried. We lost all our files, so we couldn’t verify who had already paid their camp registration fees. Publicly, I was saying, “We’re not in the business of disappointing kids. Science Camp is still on!” But inwardly, I was thinking, “What if they all demand a refund, or dozens show up claiming they already paid and expect a reserved spot for their child?”

However, my fears were unfounded. To a person, parents understood our circumstances, and “The Honor System” worked. When it was all over, nearly 800 campers had participated (a new record for the Science Station), refunds were minimal, and we even managed to make up the two lost days from that flood-affected first week.

An off-site presence

By late August, we had three other examples of how people rise to the occasion in times of need. First I received an e-mail from Mark Kirby of Eureka Exhibits. He wrote, “We have not scheduled our interactive computer simulation, Be the Dinosaur, for the fall, due to taking part of it to the ASTC Conference in October. If it can help, 75 percent of it is yours through the end of the year at no charge.” It took me all of two seconds to hit the Reply key and accept that most generous offer.

Then the reality set in. I thought, “OK, I‘ve got an exhibition, but no place to put it…and what about other exhibition expenses that don’t go away, like staffing, advertising, and insurance?” Once again, something gratifying occurred when a new-to-the-region company, ITC Midwest, approached us and said, “We’re a technology-driven organization and your mission matches ours. How can we help?” They agreed to cover all costs related to staging and presenting the exhibition, totaling more than $30,000. So, with our budget sponsored, the final step was to secure a place to stage the exhibition. A local shopping mall had 3,500 square feet of vacant space and was extremely accommodating with the rent.

Be the Dinosaur opened October 1, 2008, ran seven days a week, and closed on January 4, 2009. We had 5,803 visitors, plus several hundred who attended free Sunday afternoon lectures with local experts and amateur paleontologists. It was, to say the least, a financial success, since the full sponsorship allowed our ticket income to assist with other financial needs.

A shopping mall operation taught us other lessons, too. People go to malls for many reasons other than shopping. Seniors use them for exercise, moms see them as a way to get out of the house, and young people treat them as gathering places. These are all audiences we would like to have at the Science Station. Another benefit is that mall parking is plentiful—and free.

From this new knowledge, we created Science Station@Lindale Mall. We moved to a more visible location on the main floor, opening with an Early Childhood area, a small exhibit called Antarctica’s Climate Secrets, and the few exhibits we managed to salvage and rebuild. We’re keeping the space we used for Be the Dinosaur, too, and will hold our 2009 summer camp there.

Natural disasters happen. No one anywhere is immune from the possibility of a flood, hurricane, tornado, or fire. My advice to other museums: Take plenty of pictures, before, during, and after. They are invaluable when estimating or proving loss. Most of all, take heart from the basic goodness of the human spirit. People will surprise you with their sincere desire to help out.

John Swanson is executive director of the Cedar Rapids Science Station, Iowa.

The Toronto Declaration, adopted in June 2008 by the Fifth Science Centre World Congress, established public health as a priority for science centers, citing the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for child and maternal health and disease prevention. In this issue, we explore the efforts of science centers worldwide to improve health in their communities, through exhibitions, outreach programs, partnerships, and even food service operations.

Contents
• Active Learning, Healthy Living, by Ruth Lynfield
• Taking on Obesity in the Deep South, by Eleanor Kulin
• Creating a Smart Café, by Bob Levine
• What’s the Big Deal? An Exhibition Navigates France’s Changing Sexuality Landscape, by Maud Gouy
• North Star Guides the Way, by Chris Cable and SaVina Sandoval Haywood
• Health Messages at Science Centers in South Africa: What Is Possible? by Lorenzo Raynard
• Rising to the Challenge: Public Health in Latin American Science Centers, by Alejandra León-Castellá, Alcira García-Vassaux, José Ángel Andrade, Luisa Massarani, Martha Cambre, and Maria Cristina Ruiz (PDF available here)
• Inspiring, Engaging, and Involving: Multiple Paths to Good Health, by Gloria German
Partners for Health, by Rick Baker
• Reaching out to the Vulnerable, by Leticia Chávez Martínez and Dolores Arenas Venegas
• The Evolving Threat of Infectious Disease, by Erika Shugart

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It is appropriate that the March/April 2009 issue of ASTC Dimensions focuses on public health. April 7 is World Health Day, a day meant to raise the awareness of global health issues, and one that commemorates the founding of the World Health Organization in 1948. As an epidemiologist who is immersed in the work of public health daily, I view the term “public health” as the endeavor to ensure the good health of people and their communities by the prevention of disease and the promotion of healthy behaviors. This effort relies upon the cooperative work of scientists and health care providers to detect, describe, and measure issues of health consequence. Public health also requires the collaborative efforts of these specialists with policy makers and educators to translate data into sustained improvements for people and communities.

Education is paramount to the success of public health. However, to truly improve the health of our communities, the communication and acquisition of knowledge must be active and must inspire individuals to change a behavior or advocate for societal progress. It is tremendously difficult to change established health behaviors. Still, education received from multiple sources, particularly if there is an active component to this education, is an important instrument for change.

Science centers are particularly well suited for this type of active teaching and learning. As such, science centers throughout the world can play a major role in educating the public about health issues. Centers provide the opportunity for hands-on, in-depth exploration of a topic, including the chance for discussions with peers, family members, or teachers. Through the active learning that takes place in science centers, people can gain a more profound understanding of an issue than would be acquired from passive learning, such as reading a chapter in a textbook.

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of serving as a project advisor for the exhibition Disease Detectives at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), St. Paul. This exhibition puts the visitor in the role of evaluating a patient; exploring epidemiological clues; interpreting laboratory work; arriving at a diagnosis; and learning about the cause, transmission, and prevention of a number of important infectious diseases, such as Shiga toxin–producing E. coli, influenza, and malaria. My role was to advise on the medical and scientific content of the exhibition.

At the start, I had no concept of how SMM was going to take complex and somewhat dry information and translate it into a fun and engaging exhibition. It was quite astounding to experience the final product and observe the fun visitors had listening to lung sounds, using pulsed-field patterns to compare the molecular fingerprints of microbes, and evaluating the importance of protective measures from vectors such as mosquitoes. The hands-on activities made learning about disease and prevention much more appealing than the usual methods of public health education—such as informational brochures, web sites, or talks—increasing the likelihood that people would retain the information. Visitors spent time carefully going through the exhibition; reading the materials; and discussing them with family members, friends, and colleagues. Watching guests from ages 3 to 83, I had the strong sense that the exhibition provided fertile ground for budding epidemiologists, health care providers, scientists, and health advocates.

It is clear that science centers are key partners in the promotion of public health. Centers have the opportunity to promote an understanding of health issues by actively engaging one visitor at a time. To quote Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” As a public health professional and advocate, I am truly grateful for your work.

Ruth Lynfield is Minnesota’s state epidemiologist and medical director for infectious disease.

Science centers serve a variety of core audiences, from visitors to volunteers to Internet users. But who are these audiences and what kinds of experiences are they looking for? A recent Reach Advisors–ASTC survey identified mothers of young children as one of the largest science center audiences, and men over 60 as one of the most committed. In this issue, we take a look at these and other core users and examine ways to keep them happy and engaged.

Contents
• Moms, Museums, and Motivations: Cultivating an Audience of Museum Advocates, by Susie Wilkening
• Science for Mums, by Sue Stocklmayer
• Men over 60, by Susie Wilkening
• Where Everybody Knows Your Name, by Bob Silberman
• Attracting Core Audiences Through a Local Focus, by Lori Geller
• Visitors by Any Other Name…, by Laura Farra Myers and Bart A. Roselli
• WeTube: Getting Physical with a Virtual Community at the Ontario Science Centre, by Kevin von Appen

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Go to any science museum on a Saturday morning, and a sight awaits you. Children, in particular, are exploring science while having a great time. But what is going on in the heads of the adults, especially the parents, at the science museum? Are they equally engaged, or do they feel that more could be done to captivate their interests and their intellect?

This year, working with ASTC, Reach Advisors, a marketing strategy and research firm based in Slingerlands, New York, set out to explore the motivations and engagement levels of visitors to science museums. When we examined the data, however, we were particularly surprised by the thoughts and expectations of mothers who visit with their children.

Survey methodology

In early 2008, Reach Advisors and ASTC designed a survey to delve into a number of issues of visitor satisfaction and motivations. We then worked with 50 ASTC-member science museums in four countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia) to survey their core visitors. Each museum invited those on their e-mail list to take the survey. The e-mail lists included but were not limited to museum members. Over 14,400 respondents completed the survey, with 58 percent of survey-takers responding to the invitation of a science center, 13 percent to a children’s museum, 11 percent to a natural history museum, and the balance to other museums that did not fall neatly into any of the above categories. In this article, “science museum” is used as an umbrella term to refer to all these different kinds of museums.

Two-thirds of respondents are parents of minor children, 73 percent of respondents are female, and the respondent base is considerably more affluent and well educated than the general public in all four countries. Most respondents (88 percent) are white.

Respondents overwhelmingly believe their local science museum is “very trustworthy” (84 percent). Additionally, nearly half (47 percent) visit the museum four or more times a year. Nearly three out of five believe that the museum does a good job engaging children “of all ages.” Yet there are challenges, too. When asked what their science museum does particularly well, and instructed to choose the options most important to them, only 8 percent of respondents say they feel that the staff cares about them, and only 14 percent of respondents report that the museum helps bring the community together. These two statistics are consistent with our previous research within the museum field.

Perception: Science centers are for kids

Overall, there is a genuine sense among respondents that science centers in particular (and, to a lesser extent, natural history museums) are designed for children, not adults. (Children’s museums are also perceived, not unexpectedly, as being for children, but adults do not have as much of an expectation that a children’s museum can, or should, strengthen adult offerings, in contrast with science centers.) And when asked what audiences are served best by the museum, respondents overwhelmingly say children and their families, followed by students. Just over a fifth say adults, while the response for teens is even lower.

The desire of respondents for additional programming correlates directly with their life stage, especially parenthood. That is, respondents in their 20s want more programming for adults, respondents in their 30s want more for younger children, respondents in their 40s want more for older children, and respondents in their 50s want more for adults.

Moms: The big challenge

As we dug through the data, it became clear: Moms are a challenge. While they make up 44 percent of survey respondents, their level of engagement does not match that of adults visiting without minor children. Overall, compared with the general public, moms in their 30s and 40s are a well-educated and affluent audience, and most of the moms responding to the survey have children in elementary and/or middle school. They visit a lot; most visit four or more times a year. But unlike the nonparents responding, moms visit for their children. Four out of five moms visit for learning opportunities for their children, two-thirds because their children like to visit, and over half for family time. The focus is entirely on the kids.

What is missing here? Mom’s interests. Moms rarely write about their own interests in their written-in comments. And who is also missing here? Dad. Very few fathers responded to the survey.1 Dads do not come up in the moms’ written-in comments, either. Dads’ interests and engagement are clearly not a priority.

When it comes to membership, moms are budget oriented. Nearly 60 percent of moms join because their memberships pay for services received, and just over half join to save money. Moms cite philanthropic reasons for supporting the museum (such as helping to improve the museum or supporting community organizations) significantly less often than budget reasons.

Moms are also significantly less curious than the topline, or overall, average, with only a third identifying themselves as curious and loving to learn about science. Additionally, moms are significantly less likely to enjoy visiting other types of museums. They only sometimes feel that the science museum makes them better informed, but they want the science museum to inspire them to explore and learn more.

Ultimately, we found that, for the most part, moms are simply not that happy at the science museum. Only a third feel the museum meets the needs of their families. Moms are also generally more negative than other audience segments about the museum, and overwhelmingly think the science museum is for children, not adults.

We believe that moms make themselves second-class visitors at science museums. It is not something the museum does, but a position that moms put themselves in. This became clear when we read the moms’ written-in comments, where most moms write about their children and rarely about themselves and their own interests. But moms do not have to be second-class visitors. They can be engaged as well, without sacrificing any of the experience of their children. Our fear is that if a museum doesn’t engage moms, their ambivalence about the museum will subconsciously rub off onto their children, causing them to stop asking to go to the museum at an earlier age than they would otherwise. Additionally, this may prevent the family from moving on to visit other types of museums, a metric that we are finding to be terribly important, as explained below.

The bottom line on Mom is that she is there for the kids, but not for herself. She is not that engaged, and we need to engage her, her interests, and her intellect, for long-term sustainability. Instead, moms are going through a pattern of cycling in and cycling out of certain types of museums rather than making a lifelong commitment to museums. What we need are more Museum Advocate moms.

Museum Advocates

Reach Advisors has coined four terms to describe people by their relationships with museums: General Public, Casual Visitor, Core Visitor, and Museum Advocate. When we look at demographic profiles of museum visitors and the General Public, we find that a large part of the public does not interact with museums much at all. Within that sphere is a somewhat smaller group of individuals, Casual Visitors, who may visit a museum while on vacation, or for a specific event or exhibition, but generally does not make visiting museums a part of their lives.

Core Visitors make up an even smaller segment of the public. They are individuals who do visit museums on a regular basis, are members, are on e-mail lists, and respond to surveys. Core Visitors think museums are important, but they do not exhibit a strong emotional connection to museums.

The smallest segment of the public, Museum Advocates, does feel this emotional connection to museums. Museum Advocates are engaged, curious individuals who love to learn and who choose to visit a wide variety of museums in their leisure time.

When we look at the museum visitation patterns of Museum Advocates as they go through life stages, and compare those patterns with those of Core Visitors, we find that they are quite different. Museum Advocates typically grow up going to museums, and when they become parents, they take their children to a wide variety of museums from an early age. They layer on new types of museums as they become age appropriate, but generally do not drop any museums from their lives.2 This creates a lifelong museum habit that Museum Advocates embrace, and it creates a pattern of visiting, and supporting, a wide variety of museums. Museum Advocates are omnivorous museum-goers.

Core Visitors have a markedly different pattern. They tend to take young children to children’s museums and zoos, but they start this at a later age than Museum Advocates, who often begin bringing their children to museums during infancy. Core Visitors then progress to science centers, while continuing with zoos. But as their children get older, they may only sporadically visit museums, dropping back into casual visitation. The cycle repeats itself, with Core Visitor children repeating it as parents, and parents repeating it as grandparents, cycling in and out of museums without making a sustained commitment.

To find the Museum Advocate moms in our sample, we ran a filter for moms in their 30s and 40s who identify themselves as curious and who feel that adults are well served at the museum.3 In the Reach Advisors–ASTC study, only 7 percent of moms meet these criteria. While we undoubtedly filtered out a few Museum Advocate moms with this method, this still indicates a very low proportion of Museum Advocates. In contrast, in our study of Connecticut Cultural Consumers, which surveyed mainly visitors to history-based and art museums, nearly half of moms responding were Museum Advocates. When we examined the data based on type of museum, we found that 11 percent of moms responding to natural history museums in the survey are Museum Advocates. The number falls to 6 percent for moms responding to children’s museums. Moms responding to science centers match the topline results of 7 percent.

Having low percentages of Museum Advocates is not all bad, however. Museums with high densities of Core Visitors tend to be museums that have lower perceived barriers of entry. They have an easier time attracting broader audiences, and a greater opportunity to reach Core Visitors and work to convert them to Museum Advocates. Museums with much higher densities of Museum Advocates, such as art or historic house museums, seem to have a bigger challenge reaching broader audiences, as Core Visitors perceive higher barriers of entry to those museums. But why are Museum Advocates so important to science museums?

Museum Advocate moms are dream visitors

When we examined the responses of our Museum Advocate moms, and compared them with Core Visitor moms, we were astounded at the differences. Just over half of Museum Advocate moms feel the museum that sent them the survey request meets their family’s needs, significantly more than the 35 percent of moms in the overall sample who feel this way. Generally, these moms are more positive than the other moms about the science museum, being twice as likely to believe that the museum presents science well and also about twice as likely to feel there is always something new to see or do at the museum. They are significantly more likely to support their local science museum for philanthropic reasons, implying that they are more likely to be donors as well as members. Also, they are twice as likely to support the museum because they like to support science organizations.

There is even more good news with these engaged moms. When compared with the entire sample of moms, they are three times more likely to believe the museum serves teens and adults well. They are also twice as likely to believe the staff cares and that the museum brings the community together. Museum Advocate moms are twice as likely to feel that the museum makes them better informed and even more likely than the overall average to believe the museum is trustworthy (and the topline is 84 percent).

Dream visitors, indeed.

Museum Advocate moms also enjoy visiting a wider variety of museums than Core Visitor moms. They are much more likely to report enjoying science centers, natural history museums, history-based museums, art museums, botanical gardens and arboretums, and nature centers.

As we examined this data, and compared it with our other research on Museum Advocates, it became clear that this omnivorous consumption of museums is really important. Museum Advocate moms are creating new generations of Museum Advocates, and their engagement and involvement create a more sustainable and continued level of support, not only for science museums, but also for the museum field as a whole.

Creating more Museum Advocates

So how do we create more of these dream visitors? How do we not only grow new generations of Museum Advocates, but also convert Core Visitor moms into Museum Advocate moms?

When we closely examined the data, and compared Core Visitor moms with Museum Advocate moms in a number of our studies, some key differences became clear. Although there are no identifiable demographic differences, there are important behavioral differences. Museum Advocate moms are forthrightly seeking different kinds of experiences than Core Visitor moms, and the key difference, and driver, is narrative. When we compare the written-in comments of Museum Advocate moms with those of Core Visitor moms, both in this study and in our study of Connecticut Cultural Consumers, we find a much stronger emphasis on narrative in the comments of Museum Advocate moms.

Museum Advocate moms are specifically seeking out narrative experiences to go with hands-on experiences. There is no question that hands-on experiences are desired, and there is no question that they are an important form of learning. But the narrative experience is just as important to these moms, and Museum Advocate moms seek out both. Core Visitor moms, in contrast, focus primarily, and often solely, on the hands-on experiences that they believe engage, educate, and entertain their children.

For this reason, we believe it is incredibly important for museums that excel with hands-on experiences, such as science centers and children’s museums, to further integrate narrative into the museum, and we strongly encourage these museums to work with narrative-based museums, including history museums, historic sites, and art museums, to make this happen. By working together, narrative-based museums and hands-on museums can build on each other’s strengths, increasing engagement and visitation. We believe working together will not only help raise new generations of Museum Advocates, but also pave the way to emotionally engaging Core Visitor moms and converting them into Museum Advocates. Narrative hooks seem to be key to engaging visitors emotionally, and that is the leap we want Core Visitor moms to make. Additionally, it will help science museums reach a larger network of adult audiences that may not now visit. Everyone wins by working together: the museums, the children, and the moms.

Concluding thoughts

Science museums are fantastic places, and the respondents to the survey clearly believe in the work done by science museums. But when we peeled back the data, we found a gap with moms who feel that the science museum is important to their child’s enrichment, but are not as engaged themselves. By working with narrative-based museums to provide stories and emotional hooks to connect with both children and adults, and by layering that content, as well as content that is more appropriate to adults, onto the fantastic hands-on experiences already available, science museums can serve family audiences even better.

Susie Wilkening is senior consultant and curator of museum audiences at Reach Advisors, Slingerlands, New York.

This short article only scratches the surface of the results from this study. For more of the results, please check the Reach Advisors blog at http://reachadvisors.typepad.com and click on the category “Science Museum Visitors.”

Footnotes:
1. Those fathers who did respond tended to be parents of highly engaged teens. This may indicate that the involvement of Dad correlates to an interest in science in teens, which would make Dad a rather important figure.
2. Art museums, which do see a drop in visitation from even Museum Advocates while their children are toddlers, are the exception. However, Museum Advocates return to art museums when their children are about 6 or 7 years old, while Core Visitors generally wait until their kids are about 9.

In 2009, science centers and museums will celebrate the Year of Science, Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, and the International Year of Astronomy. Every year, many institutions plan programs around global initiatives like Earth Science Week and international holidays like World Environment Day. New celebrations such as NanoDays and the Cambridge Science Festival, Massachusetts, are introducing thousands of people to science. In this issue, we examine how science celebrations are advancing public engagement with science, changing attitudes, bringing in new audiences, and strengthening links among science centers.

Contents
• Year of Science 2009: Communicating, Collaborating, and Celebrating Science, by Sheri Potter and Judy Scotchmoor
• From the Origin to the Future of Species: Celebrating Darwin’s Legacy, by Katie Edwards
• Stars Align for the International Year of Astronomy 2009, by Kat Stein
• ASTC and the International Year of Astronomy 2009, by Walter Staveloz
• Challenging and Changing Minds: Emotional Learning and Physics Competitions, by Rachel Moll
• We Threw a Party and Everybody Came: A Science Celebration Sampler (Small Things Considered, by Vrylena Olney and Karen Pollard; Doors Wide Open for Earth Science Week, by Geoff Camphire and Adrienne Barnett; Cooking Up Science in Cambridge, by John Durant and P.A. d’Arbeloff; Celebrating Science, Enlightening Community in Gujarat, by Narottam Sahoo)

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Recipe:
1. Take one science city.
2. Carefully extract the juiciest parts, making sure to retain all the most enthusiastic graduate students, and as many superstar researchers and Nobel Laureates as you can find.
3. Mix thoroughly with generous quantities of actors, artists, broadcasters, critics, curators, entrepreneurs, exhibitors, impresarios, inventors, musicians, raconteurs, and writers.
4. Add a cup of civic leadership and a teaspoon of organizational flair, and bake for several months.
5. Serve as more than 200 separate courses over nine days, making sure that all sections of the community get plenty to eat.

This, in essence, is the Cambridge Science Festival (www.cambridgesciencefestival.org). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Museum, Cambridge, launched our first Cambridge Science Festival in April 2007, in the belief that what festivals have long done for art, literature, and music they can—and should—do for science and technology. Our aim was to throw open the laboratory doors in our particular science city, so that the whole community could celebrate what makes Cambridge—a small, not particularly prosperous city in Massachusetts—a truly world-class place.

A science stew
We have been excited by the positive response to the Cambridge Science Festival from the wider community. During our first festival, about 15,000 people attended 150 different events. In the second year, we almost doubled our attendance, as an estimated 28,000 people came to more than 200 events in 45 venues. Each year, the festival benefits from experience and momentum. Presenters become better at offering science to a broader audience in creative ways, and neighbors buzz about what surprises next year’s event might hold.

Highlights this year, from our point of view, included Lunch with a Laureate, a series of five lunchtime conversations between a Nobel Prize–winning scientist and the public; Powers of Ten, an oratorio about scale in the universe performed by the North Cambridge Family Opera; QED, a play about physicist Richard Feynman (MIT Class of 1939), produced by the Catalyst Collaborative (a partnership between MIT and a local theater company); and the Curiosity Awards, which honored more than 100 students for essays and artwork expressing their curiosity.

Brewing up benefits
Why would the MIT Museum—a relatively small museum of science and technology—take the lead in organizing a big initiative like this? First, the Cambridge Science Festival is an ideal flagship for MIT’s community outreach. Second, the MIT Museum is perfectly positioned to do something like this, with one foot firmly planted in the professional world of science and technology and the other foot equally firmly planted in the wider community. Third, organizing a festival is a great way to establish a wide network of partners across the community. Through the festival, our museum now works actively with several others (including the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, and the Museum of Science, Boston), as well as with dozens of civic, commercial, cultural, and educational organizations.

Our festival brings us many other benefits. For example, museum attendance more than doubles during the week of the festival. With the surge in visitation comes an increase in the number of “science inattentive” visitors, or folks who are not naturally drawn to science and not likely to visit science museums. Admittedly, the audience for our Lunch with a Laureate tended to have an established interest in science. But this was not so for the Science of Wine, or its sequel, Brewing Innovation. Sure, our full houses on those nights were enticed by the wine and beer tasting that followed the lectures, but attendees also soaked up the scientific research being done with yeast. Many of them were first-time visitors who enjoyed this slightly unusual introduction to the museum. A survey given to every visitor showed that they overwhelmingly felt that they had both benefited from the programs and enjoyed themselves.

We’re committed to cooking up the Cambridge Science Festival annually. (The 2009 festival is set for April 25 to May 3.) And we’re happy that other cities across the United States appear to be developing a taste for the same sort of thing. We’re actively collaborating with colleagues on the San Diego Science Festival, planned for March 2009. We’re also looking to the possibility of creating a web portal and resources to help other cities start their own science festivals. We believe ASTC-member institutions can play an important role in creating a strong network of U.S. science festivals. After all, aren’t we in the business of creatively communicating science to new audiences? If you can turn that communication into a celebration, invite a crowd, and have some fun, it’s icing on the cake.

John Durant is executive director of the MIT Museum. P.A. d’Arbeloff is director of the Cambridge Science Festival.

In April, ASTC committed to a new strategic direction, recognizing the responsibility of science centers to address critical societal issues locally and globally. The Toronto Declaration, presented at the Fifth Science Centre World Congress in June, underscored ASTC’s new focus, proclaiming that science centers can be “a powerful force for good.” By promoting dialogue on issues like climate change and human health, science centers can help forge the way toward a better future.

Contents
• The Road Ahead: ASTC’s New Strategic Direction, by Lesley Lewis
• The Toronto Declaration
• Leading for Impact, by Lynn Luckow
• RACE: Fostering Community Conversations for Social Change, by Robert Garfinkle, with Science Centers and Social Change: Questions to Consider
• Still in Search of Relevance, by Emlyn Koster
• Building the Future: Science Centers and the Net Generation, by Jennifer Corriero
• Bringing the Public’s Voices to the Forefront, by Luigi Amodio
• Engaging Leaders and Citizens in Science, by Nohora Elizabeth Hoyos and Sigrid Falla
• ASTC’s IGLO Initiative: An Interim Review, by Colin Johnson
• The Albedo Experiment: They Came, They Saw, They Reflected, by Lynn Lim
• Spot On: The Albedo Experiment in Italy, by Lavinia Del Longo
• The Decide Game: An Indian Experience, by Emdadul Islam
• Resources for Addressing Social Issues

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In April, representatives of the ASTC Board, Committee Chairs, and Governing Members met in Birmingham, Alabama, to review the organization’s purpose and strategic directions. As a group, we were truly representative of ASTC members, with both small and large institutions at the table. We all left enthusiastic about the new strategies that emerged, and with a renewed sense of conviction about the powerful role science centers can play in a rapidly changing world.

The new strategic direction and priorities position ASTC and its members for today’s world, addressing relevant local and global issues. ASTC’s new focus had already been a priority at many member institutions and has been increasingly evident in ASTC Annual Conference sessions, ASTC Dimensions themes, and international activities like ASTC’s IGLO initiative.

As your association, ASTC will continue to define its impact through the success of its members. Our intent is to ensure that science centers worldwide are valued by the public and regarded as essential to their communities. All of the participants in Birmingham acknowledged that science centers must no longer be seen solely as resources for families and children—science has relevance for people of all ages. The main new ASTC strategy will be to address critical science and society issues proactively, in order to expand our reach, relevance, impact, and sustainability. To achieve this, ASTC’s priorities will be to

• address key issues where public understanding and engagement with science are essential, such as climate change
• seek out and build alliances with those creating science knowledge or disseminating it to the public
• document and communicate the impact of science centers
• effectively serve the many levels of professionals and executives in science centers.

You will hear more about each of these priorities at the ASTC Annual Conference in October. Each of them—science and society leadership, alliances and partnerships, impact and communications, and professional development—has a task force already hard at work developing an action plan.

The new focus at ASTC was underscored at the Fifth Science Centre World Congress in June and through the Toronto Declaration issued at its conclusion. For the first time, the global science center community has developed a common statement of beliefs and commitment. The Declaration acknowledges that science centers and science can be “a powerful force for good.”

As chair of the Fifth Science Centre World Congress, I was honored to lead the Toronto Declaration’s development, along with Graham Durant (Australia), Emlyn Koster (United States), Per-Edvin Persson (Finland), Julia Tagüeña (Mexico), and Tuan Chew (Singapore). These five individuals are also active participants in ASTC and leaders in their own regional networks. The Declaration was endorsed by the International Program Committee and the boards of the regional networks. Science center and museum professionals are invited to add their names in support.

ASTC’s strategic direction and the Toronto Declaration both resonate with the work of the Ontario Science Centre. We use science as the lens to inspire and actively engage people in new ways of seeing, understanding, and thinking about themselves and the world. Our goal is to create science-literate citizens who will contribute to solving the very real problems the world faces.

The world is eager for trusted sources of information on global issues. Science centers have a role to play not only in helping people to learn about issues, but perhaps even more importantly, in encouraging them to engage and become part of the solutions.

Lesley Lewis is president of ASTC, chair of the Fifth Science Centre World Congress, and CEO of the Ontario Science Centre, Toronto.