1. art and entertainment
2. shows and events
3. exhibition

Bimonthly News Journal of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
July/August 2007
IN SCIENCE CENTERS
S:
O
R
U
A
N
D
D
N
U
U THE AUDIO
O
EXPERIENCE
S
Sound Advice:
Acoustic Considerations
for Exhibit Design
Designed for Attentive Listening:
Dealing with a Challenging
Environment
‘Wild Music’: Making the Most
of Sound in an Exhibition
Wired for Music: The Science
of Human Musicality
Heureka’s ‘Music’: Sound with a
Sociocultural Perspective
Bimonthly News Journal of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
IN THIS ISSUE
Bonnie VanDorn
Executive Director
Wendy Pollock
Director of Research, Publications,
and Exhibitions
Carolyn Sutterfield
Editor
Christine Ruffo
Researcher/Writer
Brendan Cartwright
Publications Assistant
Editorial Advisors
Elsa Bailey
National Science Teachers Association
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
Rita Deedrick
COSI Columbus
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.
Graham Farmelo
Science Museum, London, U.K.
Preeti Gupta
New York Hall of Science
Queens, New York, U.S.A.
Mikko Myllykoski
Heureka, The Finnish Science Centre
Vantaa, Finland
Vishnu Ramcharan
Ontario Science Centre
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Contributors
Philip Blackburn
Eric Dimond
Donald A. Hodges
Mikko Myllykoski
J. Shipley Newlin
Wendy Pollock
Stephen Pompea
Andrea Weatherhead
July/August 2007
Researchers who study the human brain and nervous system continue to find
connections between environmental sound (both ambient and organized) and
behavioral/emotional response. Anthropologists and neuroscientists alike tell us
that music has been and remains critical to the development and survival of our
species. It seems that people are hard-wired to respond to the quality of sound
around us. Yet the auditory environments of science centers do not always reflect
that understanding. In this issue, we draw on research into acoustics, the brain,
and learning, as well as current museum practice, to explore the effect of sound
on human experience—with implications for the design of both exhibits and
the larger museum environment.
Features
Sound Advice: Acoustic Considerations for Exhibit Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Designed for Attentive Listening: Dealing with a Challenging Environment . . . . . . . 5
‘Wild Music’: Making the Most of Sound in an Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Wired for Music: The Science of Human Musicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Composing an Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Heureka’s ‘Music’: Sound with a Sociocultural Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Science Sonatas: Listening to Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Sound Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Departments
Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
ASTC Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Spotlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Grants & Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Cover: A variety of interactive exhibits posed challenges for Wild Music, a 4,000-square-foot,
National Science Foundation–funded traveling exhibition launched earlier this year by
ASTC and the Science Museum of Minnesota. Wild Music explores the evidence for music’s
biological origins and seeks to expand visitors’ understanding of what constitutes music.
Photos, clockwise from left: Jamming Room by Wendy Hancock; whale song spectrograms courtesy
Science Museum of Minnesota; Bird Song and Touchable Sound exhibits by Dale Dehmer
ASTC Dimensions (ISSN 1528-820X) is published six times a year by the Association
of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, 1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 500,
Washington, DC 20005-6310, U.S.A. Copyright ©2007 the Association of ScienceTechnology Centers Incorporated. All rights reserved. ASTC Dimensions is printed on
45 percent recyled paper with environmentally friendly inks.
ASTC Dimensions is intended to keep member institutions apprised of trends, practices, perspectives, and news of significance to the science center field. All ASTC members
receive five free copies of each issue as a benefit of membership. Individual subscriptions
are also available: For employees of ASTC-member institutions, the annual rate is US$35;
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ASTC Dimensions • July/August 2007
3
Sound Advice:
Acoustic Considerations for Exhibit Design
By Andrea Weatherhead
H
as anyone ever asked you, as
you returned from visiting a
new exhibition, “So how did
it sound?” And if someone did, have
you ever had anything positive to say?
Sadly, acoustic design in exhibitions
is often noticed only when it has been
done poorly or not at all. The typical
exhibit designer emphasizes the visual
at the expense of the auditory. But
with today’s audiences increasingly
expecting museum exhibitions to
include media-rich experiences, the
arts of acoustics and audio delivery are
of growing interest to developers and
designers.
To convey their messages, exhibitions now draw on everything from
ambient audio, video, kiosks, and
multimedia interactives to electromechanical experiences, simulator
rides, and immersion theaters. Each of
these experiences emits not only its
own audio content but also attendant
mechanical sounds—and often loud
shrieks of glee from visitors as well.
What effect does this new wave of
audio experiences have on visitor
satisfaction? Quite a lot, as it turns
out. When integrated with imagery,
lighting, and graphics, sound is an
important communication tool within
the museum. It adds emotion and
dimension to the visitor experience. It
appeals to a variety of learning preferences. It provides a way for designers
to transport people into the “worlds”
they create.
Sound even appears to play an
active role in learning and memory.
A 1996 report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s OSHA Office of
Training and Education cites research
indicating “that three days after an
event, people retain 10 percent of
what they heard from an oral presenta-
Left: A media map—pictured here, a
project at Calgary, Alberta’s Glenbow
Museum—is a graphic that lets the design
team see an exhibition from a sonic point
of view. Above: The Sound Lab at Seattle’s
Experience Music Project illustrates the
challenge of managing competing
sound spaces.
All images courtesy Weatherhead
Experience Design Group
tion, 35 percent from a visual presentation, and 65 percent from a visual
and oral presentation.”
As the use of sophisticated sound
media in museums becomes more
prevalent, the quality of the experience
will become even more crucial. Anyone who has ever fled from a noisy
science center gallery (“Too loud—I
just had to get out of there!”) can tell
you that auditory exhaustion comes
sooner than visual. It is vital that
content developers, architects, designers, and fabricators understand how to
manage sound, lest their expensively
produced efforts drive visitors away.
Setting the stage for success
The integration of sound in exhibits
calls for rigorous design considerations
from the start. It is possible to improve
the sound experience within almost
any setting, but strategies need to be
mapped out ahead of time, not
applied as bandages to poorly planned
environments.
To develop a sonically successful
exhibition, it takes a minimum of four
critical players: the exhibit designer/
developer, the acoustics engineer, the
A/V or multimedia designer/producer,
and the museum leader. Nontechnical
personnel must acquire at least a basic
understanding of acoustics and how
sound behaves in a space, and the
director or deputy who signs off on the
budget must understand that acoustic
planning, design, and treatment are
exhibition priorities.
In an ideal process, this core group,
in concert with other members of the
exhibition team, will
• engage in a thoughtful and collab-
4
July/August 2007 •
ASTC Dimensions
orative process of media planning;
• apply architectural acoustic practices at the right time in the development process (before floor plans are
established and finishes specified); and
• implement effective audio delivery
systems and acoustic treatments for
both new and existing exhibit spaces.
Mapping the media
A planning device frequently suggested
by acoustic engineers and media producers is “media mapping.” In this
collaborative effort, team members
first define how much and what
kind of audio they
want to include in
exhibits and then
pace out the exhibition space on foot,
mapping it according to the various
sound-emitting
components.
During this
walkthrough, the
engineer and producer will
ask typical questions of
design staff to help categorize
elements appropriately:
• Content: What do you want to
communicate to the visitor in terms of
content? Will sound be archival (thus
possibly of poor quality) or original?
Will there be music? Spoken word?
• Delivery: Will audio elements be
mono, stereo, or surround-sound? Do
you want a mini theater, looping
audio, an ambient soundscape, interactive sound exhibits, live demos with
docents? Will visitors use personal
audio devices (headsets, wands, or
PDAs)? Does the exhibition include
immersive environments? Quiet areas?
• Accessibility: How do you plan to
meet ADA requirements? Will there
be auditory labels for people with visual impairments? If there is an audio
tour, will it need to sync audio from
the exhibition’s media programs?
Following the walkthrough, the
engineer and producer draw up a
spreadsheet listing all the planned
activities and their attributes (e.g.,
how many people are intended to hear
a narration, and what type of sound
elements are in it?).
The next step is, in consultation
with the design team, to arrange the
audio elements according to the ideal
storyline of the exhibition and the
available space.
Where will
the audio take
place? Will
there be live
presentations in
Focusing sound
helps to create
personal space
within an exhibition. Left: directional speakers serve the purpose for Pizza Run, an interactive exhibit in STARTUP, the New Mexico
Museum of Natural History’s exhibition on
the history of microcomputers. Top right: a
design for a simple speaker tube.
certain spots? Will activities overlap
sonically? What is your expected
throughput (number of visitors on a
peak day)? Do nearby exhibit areas
depend heavily on the use of sound?
The final result is the media map, a
graphic that lets everyone see the
situation from a sonic point of view.
This makes it possible to identify and
mitigate competing sources of sound
before anything is built.
Addressing architectural
challenges
Like a pebble dropped in a pond,
sound spreads outward—in this case,
spherically—as waves of air pressure.
Higher frequencies are more directional and easier to absorb or block;
lower frequencies generate larger wave
lengths capable of passing around or
over small objects and partitions.
Three main factors affect the quality
of the sound experience in a given museum space; all have specific solutions.
1. Cavernous spaces: The tiled floors,
cement walls, and domed ceilings that
make science center lobbies visually appropriate
and impressive also make
them unfriendly as gathering spaces for the kind of
parties or musical performances often hosted
there. Fortunately, there
are acoustic treatments or
solutions that can help.
Careful positioning of
temporary panels or hanging of drapes across glass
walls can deaden reflective
surfaces. In new construction, adding a glass wall at
a slight tilt can ensure
that sound reflects up into
an absorbent area. Sound absorption can be added behind
video screens and in the ceiling
and sidewalls.
2. Reflected sound: Acoustic
engineers commonly measure the
reverberation (reverb) time of a
room—how long it takes for a sound
to fade from its initial “incident attack” volume to the end of its last
echo. As the reverb time of a given
space increases, ambient noise goes up
and intelligibility decreases. In museums, this means that visitors raise their
voices, underlying noise levels go even
higher, and the vicious cycle repeats.
Some degree of reverberation adds
to the quality of a musical experience,
but since museums are mainly concerned with sound abatement, the goal
is usually to reduce reverb time. This is
done through various means of sound
absorption.
Ceilings can be made of attractive
perforated metals and/or woods, with
absorbent materials behind them to
soak up sound. Sound-absorbent
structures can be incorporated with
other required infrastructure, too: An
acoustic absorbent “cloud,” for example, can carry lights, sprinklers, and
wiring for audio (Continued on page 7)
ASTC Dimensions
•
July/August 2007
5
Designed for Attentive Listening:
Dealing with a Challenging Environment
By Eric Dimond
A
nyone who has ever visited the
Exploratorium can imagine the
challenges involved in adapting
our space for an exhibition on the topic
of listening. The museum is housed in a
curved steel/concrete structure nearly a quarter of a mile
long, with a peaked roof towering more than 50 feet above
visitors’ heads. Less than 20 percent of the interior space is
carpeted, interior walls are rare, and only a few sections of
the exhibit floor have lowered ceilings. In addition, many of
the exhibits produce sound (some are quite loud, in fact),
and our visitors are not particularly quiet either.
All of these factors combine to create a listening environment that hovers around 80–85 decibels (dB) at midday
(somewhere between the sound of a working vacuum cleaner and the sound of truck traffic, according to one scale).
In undertaking to build Listen: Making Sense of Sound, a
National Science Foundation-funded exhibition focused on
finding ways to support visitors in listening attentively, the
exhibition team knew that our space would require some
sort of acoustic treatment. But as we began the project,
we didn’t know what exactly that would look like, how
extensive it would need to be, or what it would cost.
Exhibition designer Diane Burk and I had several goals
for Listen’s acoustic environment. Some criteria were
obvious from the beginning, but others evolved as we
learned more about the realities of creating sonically
effective environments with finite amounts of time and
money. Basically, we wanted the following:
• a flexible acoustic design plan that would be easily
adaptable, in the short and long term, to the changing
needs of the exhibition and the museum itself
• a uniform aesthetic that would not visually distract from
the focus on listening
• acoustically protective alcoves that would accommodate specific exhibits and groups of 1–3 visitors
• spaces that allowed visitors to feel ownership of exhibit
experiences while allowing good visibility across the
collection.
There were two main reasons why our approach needed
to remain flexible. The first was that we were designing and
building the overall acoustic system for the exhibition while
we were still in the process of creating, evaluating, and
modifying individual exhibits. We did not yet know what
specific acoustic demands the complete collection would
generate.
More broadly, we also recognized that if there is one
constant at the Exploratorium, it is change: The museum
floor is always in flux, with exhibits, collections, and public
Listen’s acoustically protective alcoves are clustered in groups of
three to form a “honeycomb.” Narrow windows ensure privacy for
users while permitting views across the floor, and the disc-shaped
baffle floating overhead further improves the acoustics. Inset: A
close-up of wall construction. Photos by Amy Snyder/©Exploratorium
events continually changing the layout. Whatever we
designed had to be adaptable to new conditions.
A flexible, modular plan
Early on, we began working with experienced acoustic
consultants. Among the many ideas we adopted from
Andrea Weatherhead, of Weatherhead Design (see “Sound
Advice,” page 3), were both the overall wall design of the
exhibition and the honeycomb shape in which individual
alcove units are arranged. Ewart “Red” Wetherill, of Ewart
A. Wetherill, AIA, helped us design a small theater and the
sound-absorbing ceiling elements that hang over the
honeycomb wall structures. Importantly, both Andrea and
Red encouraged us to tackle our acoustics problems at the
individual exhibit level first, rather than at the level of overall ambient sound. Without their expertise and attention,
the experience of Listen’s visitors would not have been
nearly as strong.
Through a process of trial and error, the design team
came up with a flexible modular plan for the exhibition’s
rooms and alcoves. The primary components consist of wall
units and a set of variously angled posts that connect them.
Each wall unit is 6 inches thick, 4 feet wide, and 9 feet tall,
with a narrow 6-inch horizontal window placed 52 inches
above the ground. The windows are deliberately placed out
of the view of most visitors using the alcoves; the idea was
to provide privacy and safety and discourage destructive
behavior while still allowing comfortable lines of sight
through the alcoves from outside.
To control sound within the units, corner posts were
6
July/August 2007 •
ASTC Dimensions
constructed in four angle configuraimprove the acoustics within.
tions, allowing us to connect the
Some of the exhibits in the collecwalls in several nonparallel foottion ask visitors to listen really
prints. Plywood cores and 2.5-inch
attentively, and for these it was clear
acoustic baffling on each side limit
we would need even more acoustic
through-wall sound transmission.
protection. The last significant
Finally, the walls are covered with
source of ambient noise we could
perforated plywood exteriors with
address was the alcoves’ open
loose-weave burlap between insulaentrances.
tion and plywood.
We were reluctant to mount
Our goal was a uniform aesthetic
actual doors—one, because of the
that would expose the design’s
added cost and complexity and,
acoustic functions to visitors in a
two, because we did not want to
simple, unembellished way. During
make these spaces feel barricaded
prototyping of wall units, we spent
considerable time trying materials
and patterns to find a combination
that would achieve the goal of
uniform look and feel but also be
cost-effective and allow for practical long-term maintenance. In the
end, we used plywood to construct both interior and exterior
walls and posts.
For the walls’ outer surfaces, we
chose prefinished plywood custom
cut with an oversized perforated
pattern of uniform 1.5-inch holes.
Although wood construction
meant that the units would be
heavy, this solution turned out to
be the most cost effective—and it
added a certain warmth to the
exhibition that fit well with the
For exhibits that require a visitor to listen especially
team’s aesthetic preferences.
The senior researcher on the Listen
team, Sue Allen, designed a study
to explore this possibility. The observational study compared visitor
behavior at an alcove equipped with
either full-length vinyl strips, shorter
strips, or a completely open entrance
(no strips).
Observations of 116 visitor groups
suggested that the vinyl strip doors
had no apparent effect on the number of visitors entering the space or
the time they remained inside. In
addition, the strips offered excellent
visibility from both outside and
inside, allowing visitors to see
each other and maintaining a
sense of the collection’s spatial
continuity.
Lessons from Listen
The Listen team learned some key
lessons about working with sound
during this project:
• We discovered that it saves
time and money to think about
acoustics from the start. We
consulted experts early on and
made sure to set aside an appropriate portion of the budget for
materials, experimentation, and
construction.
• We also learned that it is not
necessary to use specialty materiattentively, the designers added “doors” made of clear als. Our vinyl strip doors were
vinyl strips. These strips decrease the ambient noise
inexpensive to make, and the
An extra level of sound
level by as much as 10 dB, but do not inhibit visitors
standard house insulation our conprotection
from entering. Photo by Amy Snyder/©Exploratorium
sultants recommended in place of
costly brand-name acoustic foams
We arranged most of the wall
worked just as well in absorbing
and unwelcoming. Instead, we
units into small alcoves, each deexplored a cost-effective solution:
sound. (We even found a flamesigned to accommodate a single
“doors” made of hanging vinyl
retardant brand made from recycled
exhibit and 1–3 visitors. Clustering
strips.
jeans.)
these alcoves in groups of three (a
In the past, the Exploratorium had
• Finally, we learned that although
configuration we call a “honeyused opaque versions of strip barriintegrating overall design and
comb”) meant they could share
ers in exhibit enclosures to control
acoustic design solves many probwalls, for a significant cost savings.
both light and sound. Based on
lems, it is still important to prototype
One of our goals on this project
those experiences, we installed clear
as many of the acoustic elements on
was to design spaces that wouldn’t
vinyl-strip “doors” on several of the
the museum floor as you can. With
feel like rooms or cubicles. But
Listen alcoves.
careful early planning, we had time
as we began testing exhibits within
Like the addition of the hanging
and money to make last-minute
the alcoves, we realized that some
roof baffles, the strip doors enadjustments to individual exhibits
sort of acoustic protection was needhanced the sonic effectiveness of
that greatly enhanced their acoustic
ed above them.
the units, decreasing the ambient
effectiveness. ■
After prototyping several “roof”
noise level by as much as 10 dB.
designs, we settled on disc-shaped
This seemed to solve the problem.
Eric Dimond is an exhibit developer
acoustic baffles large enough to
Nevertheless, we worried that the
at the Exploratorium, San Francisco,
cover the three clustered alcoves of
perceived or actual effort of pushing
California. To learn more about
a honeycomb. Hung to float about
through the strip doors might inhibit
Listen: Making Sense of Sound, visit
1 foot above the top edges of the
some visitors from entering.
www.exploratorium.edu/listen.
alcove walls, the baffles dramatically
ASTC Dimensions
(Continued from page 4) delivery.
Acoustic materials can double as finishes, thermal insulation, light reflectors, partitions, and graphic panels.
3. Sound bleed: To block transmission of noise via the HVAC system,
acoustic engineers may apply duct
liner to duct exteriors, install baffles
at the openings of returns and vents,
and build ducts with sharp U-turns.
To minimize sound bleed from
competing sound sources, sound can
be focused with individual domes or
steered arrays—devices with lots of
tiny speakers and relatively good frequency response. (These work well in
lobby spaces.) A budget way to focus
sound is a speaker tube (see diagram,
page 4) consisting of a four-sided plywood box, a loudspeaker, and a 3foot length of duct liner; its waterfall
effect focuses sound quite well.
Ensuring effective delivery
It is essential that the hardware you
select to support planned exhibit
experiences conforms to the soundfocusing requirements discussed
above. This is where a media producer or acoustic engineer can help.
Some audio may require special
equalization or shaping to make it
intelligible. Music calls for better
fidelity than spoken word, and the
delivery of full-spectrum frequency
requires good-quality loudspeakers,
carefully positioned. For hands-on
experiences, speakers may need to be
placed inside exhibit casework.
Here are some adaptations for
particular needs:
• Contained sound: For minitheaters, where the goal is to reach
several rows of visitors, speakers can
be placed on either side of a video
screen and along the walls toward the
back of the space. This gets the
sound as close to visitors as possible
while keeping the overall volume low.
Other methods for containing sound
in spaces without doors range from
partitions to spiral enclosures to
sound locks (entries/exits with
absorbent panels and hairpin turns).
• Floor speakers: Where a ceiling is
too high for mounting speakers,
sound can be focused out of the floor.
This must be specified early on, since
such speakers require a recess in the
floor. Aimed slightly at an angle, a
floor speaker array will hit visitors’
heads when they are standing at the
right spot to watch a screen.
• Immersive experiences: Immersive
experiences tend to have omnidirectional seating, making the specifications and locations of speakers
extremely important. Spoken word,
sound effects, musical scores, and a
soundtrack may all be key elements of
these experiences, in which sound is
often used to direct the visitor’s attention to different points of view.
The case for acoustics
It takes courage to make a commitment to good acoustic design. The
problem is invisible, and treatment is
not cheap. The process, with its attendant special shapes, materials, finishes, and floor plan considerations, is
enough to make designers tear their
hair. It is hard work.
Is acoustic design worth fighting
for? Undoubtedly. Good acoustics are
a tool to help exhibitions communicate better, to make sure that what
the designers want to be heard is
heard, and that those elements that
can be delivered effectively as media
are distinguished from those that
should remain visual only.
The best outcome is that allowing
for acoustics during the design
process will ensure that visitors feel
comfortable as they experience your
exhibition. You may have felt like
screaming as you dealt with the
details of good sound design, but no
one will need to run screaming from
the cacophony of a chaotic sound environment. You have fought nobly for
the visitor’s right to intelligibility and
comfort and for an element that, although completely invisible, will make
or break the exhibition’s success. ■
Andrea Weatherhead is a principal of
Weatherhead Experience Design Group
Inc., Seattle, Washington.
•
July/August 2007
7
Ten Tips for Good
Acoustic Exhibit Design
1. Avoid hard-surfaced, highly reflective
materials—i.e., stone, glass, metal, and
concrete. They reduce control over where
sound travels. Likewise, avoid components that will act as reflectors and
bounce sound around the spaces, unless
that is a desired effect.
2. High ceilings, especially those treated
with absorbent materials, are better than
low ones. Avoid domed ceilings, which
can focus sound in unwanted “hot spots.”
3. Bass sound waves are long and difficult
to control: consider using bass shakers,
which replace bass audio with physical
vibrations, tricking visitors into believing
they are hearing those frequencies rather
than merely feeling them.
4. In areas with multiple sound sources,
provide ways to deliver sound close to a
visitor’s ears. Competing sound sources
need to be far enough apart that one is
at least 10 decibels (dB) louder than the
other. Take advantage of a predominant
sound to mask other competing sounds.
5. Use circuitous routes between spaces
to achieve acoustic isolation without the
need for doors and ceilings.
6. Budget enough money and space for
acoustic treatments; commercial soundabsorbing panels can run $10 to $40 per
square foot. Cheaper materials exist, but
you will need to budget time and labor
for mounting them. Remember that absorption materials take up valuable space
on floor plans, making walls, ceilings, and
ducts thicker.
7. Consider carpeting areas of greatest
sound intensity.
8. Ensure that spaces are free of excessive mechanical noise (e.g., do not locate
exposed air units in the gallery).
9. When planning audio with video, you
may want to use focused sound devices.
A video monitor’s integral speakers are
usually designed to cover as wide an area
as possible.
10. Take special care with location and
orientation of mini-theaters; sound bleed
out the rear can interfere with adjacent
exhibits. Doors are not needed if speakers and materials are chosen and placed
wisely.—A.W.
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July/August 2007
•
ASTC Dimensions
Making the Most
of Sound in an Exhibition
‘Wild Music’:
By Wendy Pollock and J. Shipley Newlin
A Wild Music visitor compares her
vocalization to the visual/tactile diagrams
of vowel sounds in the Electronic Voice
exhibit. Photo by Dale Dehmer
S
ound in an exhibition? Most of
the time, exhibition planners
think of sound as something to
be dampened, controlled, or contained. The very term “sound bleed”
suggests exhibits battling for attention
in an atmosphere of cacophony.
In planning Wild Music: Sounds &
Songs of Life, the exhibition team—an
unusual partnership among ASTC,
the Science Museum of Minnesota
(SMM), and the Music Research
Institute at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro—decided to
approach sound from an alternative
perspective. We would treat it as an
element to be tuned and composed, as
well as an opportunity to enrich the
experience for visitors who are blind or
have low vision. Funding from the
National Science Foundation, Harman
International, and NEC Foundation of
America, ensured that the team was
well positioned for this task.
We also were encouraged by what
we were learning from our science
advisors who study natural sounds as
“soundscapes” (the acoustical equivalents of biomes), not just birdsong extracted from its context or a frog’s call
minus its chorusing kin. Why not regard the exhibition in a similar spirit,
with an overall and positive approach
to acoustics paralleling traditional approaches to visual and spatial design?
Of the many people who provided
advice and expertise to guide us on this
path, two were especially important in
our experiments with sound: Walter
Waranka, an access advisor we invited to
serve on the exhibition planning team,
and Philip Blackburn, the musician who
ultimately composed the exhibition’s
overall soundscape.
Strategies for interpreting
sound
An employment consultant and president of the Minnesota chapter of the
American Council of the Blind, Wally
Waranka had participated in an ASTC
Accessible Museum Practices workshop
in 2002. His regular attendance at
Wild Music planning sessions helped
maintain a focus on the experiences of
people with disabilities.
Waranka could see the potential of
the subject for people who are blind, as
he is. Whale song, bird and insect calls,
human music, the physics of sound—
all are part of the study of the biological origins of music. There would be
plenty to listen to. But assuming we
could achieve high-quality sound, how
could we ensure that the sounds would
make sense to those who can’t read
signs? And what experiences could be
meaningful for people who are deaf or
hard of hearing?
With Waranka’s advice, the developers devised an array of strategies for
interpreting sounds. These included
• Braille and acoustic labels. Standardized locations make these easy to locate.
• Tactile relief models. In one exhibit,
for example, whale models are associated with buttons that activate
different species’ songs.
• Tactile diagrams. In an exhibit
about animal vocalization, visitors can
select a tactile sonogram of a bird,
mammal, or insect song and insert it
into a slot, activating an audio recording. In an exhibit about the human
voice (see above), tactile diagrams illustrate the shapes of anatomical airways
and working mechanical analogs.
• Experiences of sound as vibration. A
spectrum analyzer that works through
vibrating metal reeds allows visitors to
both feel and see that single sounds are
often composed of several frequencies.
In the exhibition’s small theater, “bass
shaker” speakers bolted under the seats
let visitors feel low-frequency parts of
the soundtrack, while limiting the
spread of these hard-to-contain sounds
into the rest of the exhibit space.
• Visual representations of sound. In a
working model of a larynx, a fan blows
low-pressure air through rubber flaps.
By pulling on a control knob, visitors
can stretch the flaps and bring them together, producing a sound that varies in
pitch with the tension applied. Strobe
LEDs help visitors see how vibrations
make the sounds they hear—or to see
sounds they can’t hear.
After constructing a series of prototypes with Waranka’s advice, we tested
them with other consultants who had
developed exhibits with people who are
deaf and hard of hearing. We also tested
ASTC Dimensions
prototypes during a session focused
entirely on accessible design. This was
attended by members of several Twin
Cities groups that represent people who
have personal and professional experience with disabilities.
A positive experience for all
It was important to the Wild Music
team that an exhibition about the deep
roots and universality of music be
broadly accessible and offer a rich and
positive sonic experience. Not content
with containing, controlling, and
interpreting (Continued on page 11)
July/August 2007
9
Wired for Music:
The Science of Human Musicality
By Donald A. Hodges
Containing and controlling
sound
In addition to making individual sound
experiences intelligible to a wider range
of users, we were committed to creating an overall sound environment that
was meaningful and harmonious. With
32 interactive exhibits in a 4,000square foot space, this required a variety of sound-containment strategies.
From among the more familiar, we
adapted several that were best suited to
the exhibition’s intent:
• Headphones. Although headphones
have drawbacks, our musical consultants persuaded us that there was no
way to achieve enough high-quality
sound experiences without them. We
were encouraged by the example of
Seattle’s Experience Music Project,
which makes extensive use of headphones. We chose lightweight AKG
headphones and, to counter the potentially isolating effect, provided them
for the most part in pairs.
• Near-field speakers. We mounted
high-quality speakers at about ear
height for an adult seated on a stool,
and provided start buttons and volume
controls to reduce unnecessary sounds
when an exhibit is not in use.
• Enclosures. We constructed three
types of enclosures: a professional music
practice room; open, roofless carrels
with nonparallel, insulation-filled walls
to reduce internal reflection and sound
bleed; and a theater that uses hanging
baffles with other acoustic elements.
•
M
in the floors of caves, indicating dance
(hence music); wear patterns on bone and
rock fragments, indicating usage as
percussion instruments; and even some
early instruments. One bone flute is
thought to be around 53,000 years old.
There is corollary evidence, too—in
the fact, for example, that the caves most
acoustically suited for singing and chanting are precisely the ones that have the
most paintings. Anthropologists tell us
that the bow is as much a musical
instrument as it is a weapon.
Humans thrive in communities, and
those attributes that help to meld
individuals into a cohesive unit provide
an obvious survival value. Singing and
dancing are two of the most powerful
ways to create social unity, and every
tribe or cultural group documented thus
far identifies itself through particular
songs and rituals.
Equally important for survival are the
musical capacities in mothers and babies
that allow them to share and express
emotions during the infant’s years of
dependence and growth. Mothers share
important information with their babies
by a host of behaviors, including singing,
As old as humankind
rocking, and patting in a rhythmic fashion
and speaking in a way
Fifty thousand years ago,
(dubbed by some “mothour ancestors were
erese”) that emphasizes
spending the time,
pitch, timbre, rhythm, and
energy, and creative
dynamics. Infants, likewise,
brain power necessary to
learn early on to modulate
make and use musical
their voices to convey
instruments—a fact that
emotional states.
says something important
Memory is also of crucial
about the significance
importance to the survival
music has for our species.
of a society. Not only is
Although the evidence
memory of a technological
for ancient music is not
nature important: When
as common as that for
best to plant? Where best
ancient art (instruments
to find game? How best to
of reeds, wood, and
start a fire? Equally vital
hides being less enduring
are the things that make a
than cave paintings),
Wild Music advisor Jelle Atema
society unique and spethere are still numerous
indicators of early music. plays a replica of a Neanderthal cial: Who are we? Where
bone flute. Photo by Gabriele Gerlach did we come from? What
These include footprints
usic is at the very core of what it
means to be a human being. To
find music is to find human beings, and vice versa. Although some features of the natural soundscape (e.g.,
that which we call bird song or whale
song) bear remarkable similarities to
human music, nothing in any other
species remotely compares to the richness, variety, and sheer amount of music
that humans produce. Indeed, humans
spend such an inordinate amount of
time, money, and passion on music that
it seems as if we are wired to be musical.
And so we are. Both anthropological
and neurological research support the
conclusion that, for human beings, music
is not a happy accident but rather an
adaptive behavior that has provided
significant survival benefits for our
species over time. Although we may vary
in our musicality, no human is bereft of
musical sensitivity. Criteria such as
gender, age, race, or socioeconomic
status cannot by themselves prohibit any
person from a meaningful experience
with music.
10
July/August 2007 •
makes us better than our
enemies who live on the
other side of the river?
Music is one of the most
effective mnemonic devices. It enables preliterate
societies to retain information—not just facts, but the
feelings that accompany
those facts as well. Poems,
songs, and dances are
primary vehicles for the
transmission of a culture.
ASTC Dimensions
human health and
well being.
A unique way of
knowing
The basic, biological
equipment of our
species includes a
musical brain that
provides us with rich
insights into the
human condition and
Researchers are still mapping locations of music perception in the human
brings
us great joy
brain; areas marked are linked to song recognition. Image courtesy Donald Hodges
Based in the brain
and beauty. Just as
language, mathematics, and other
likely due to good time management
The human brain is modularized—
intelligences provide unique ways of
skills, parental support, and so on,
meaning that there are relatively
understanding, sharing, and expressthan because music has made them
separate neural networks for various
ing our inner and outer worlds, so
smarter. Musical training undoubtcognitive domains (e.g., language,
too does music offer unique ways of
edly makes people “musically
mathematics, music). Within the neural
knowing the world.
smarter,” but transfers into other
network for each domain are nodal
Music is not just an accidental
domains are likely to be limited.
points involved in particular facets of
byproduct, providing people with
Although our brains come wired in
processing. In language, there are
pleasant things to do in our leisure
such a way that we could learn any
locally specialized regions for speaktime. Music was critically important
musical style, specific musical expresing, for understanding speech, for
to our development as a species,
sion is culturally determined. As
reading, for writing, and so on. The
and it continues to be at the core of
children we learn the musical lansame is true for music, although
what it means to be human. ■
guage of our culture in the same way
neuroscientists are just now beginthat we learn to speak English or
ning to map musical pathways. ReWild Music advisor Donald A.
Swahili or Mandarin Chinese. Of
search shows that music activates reHodges is director of the Music
course, some of us are multimusical,
gions of the human brain that
Research Institute at the University of
just as some are multilingual, but
are widely distributed, but locally
North Carolina at Greensboro.
much of what is expressed in music
specialized. These areas include
is culturally based. Without training,
front-back, top-bottom, and leftReferences
it can be difficult to understand the
right pathways in the brain.
• Avanzini, Giuliano, Carmine
music of another culture.
Active music training, particularly
Faienza, Diego Minciacchi, Luisa
Being fully human means to expeif it starts before the age of 7, leads
Lopez, and Maria Majno. The Neurorience the infinite shadings that exist
to changes in areas of the brain
sciences and Music. New York:
between the polar ends of emotional
dealing with auditory processing,
Annals of the New York Academy of
states. Our experience of these
motor control, and sensory inteSciences, Vol. 999, 2003.
refined feelings is essentially nongration. Many differences in brain
• ———————. The Neuroverbal. Our vocabulary is limited in
structures and functions have been
sciences and Music II: From Percepthis area, and we often experience
demonstrated in adult musicians,
tion to Performance. New York:
difficulty in telling one another exactwhen compared to untrained subAnnals of the New York Academy of
ly how we feel. Music is one of the
jects. It must be clearly stated that
Sciences, Vol. 1060, 2005.
most powerful outlets for expressing
brain changes occur not only with
• Hodges, Donald A. “Neuromusical
emotion, and emotional response is
music, but also with anything one
Research: A Review of the Literaclearly at the core of music’s meanspends time doing, such as playing
ture.” In Handbook of Music Psying. Yet this topic, until recently, has
sports. Nevertheless, there is comchology, Second Edition, Donald A.
not received much attention.
pelling support for the effects of
Hodges (ed.). University of Texas at
Neuroscientists are just beginning
early childhood musical experiences.
San Antonio: IMR Press, 1996.
to identify brain sites involved in
Some have construed this to
• Wallin, Nils L., Björn Merker, and
affective responses to music, and
mean that “music makes you
Steven Brown, eds. The Origins of
some physicians are already using
smarter,” but there is limited eviMusic. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
affective responses to music in the
dence to believe that this is the
2000.
practice of music medicine. Studying
case—at least not in the simplistic
• Zatorre, Robert J., and Isabelle
emotion is not easy, and progress is
sense. Students who participate in
Peretz, eds. The Biological Foundalikely to be slow. But in time, there
band, chorus, or orchestra do typitions of Music. New York: Annals of
will be many applications and undercally have higher SAT scores than
the New York Academy of Sciences,
standings of music as it relates to
the average student, but this is more
Vol. 930, 2001.
ASTC Dimensions
(Continued from page 9) a collection of
sounds, we decided to approach the
entire exhibition as a soundscape—or,
more exactly, three interconnected
soundscapes.
Because the songs of birds, whales,
and people are key strands in the biology of music, we organized much of the
exhibition into thematic areas we called
the Edge of the Forest, the Town, and
the Ocean Deeps. Each is anchored by
a schematic “set” and distinguished by
a composition by environmental sound
artist Philip Blackburn. (For details on
that process, see “Composing an Exhibition,” below.) The compositions create an acoustic niche both for exhibits
that can be heard at a distance (such as
a giant wooden xylophone) and for
visitors’ conversations.
These themes were extended in a
teacher workshop and public programs
held when Wild Music opened. Whale
expert Roger Payne, one of the project
advisors, spoke about his research and
played recordings of whale songs; we
had to rent speakers capable of trans-
Composing an Exhibition
A
•
July/August 2007
11
mitting the vibrations of their deep bass
notes throughout the museum. A
local gamelan performed bird-related
Indonesian compositions, and SMM’s
teen volunteers shared pocket science
demos with visitors.
Work in progress
Wild Music opened in March, and as it
moves to the North Carolina Museum
of Natural Sciences in June, we are just
beginning to explore the possibilities for
reaching new audiences through its rich
sound experiences and themes. Evaluation suggests some fine-tuning that will
help improve the visitor experience, but
in general the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Visitors are telling
interviewers that they appreciate the
tactile experiences and the presence of
Braille and acoustic labels, even though
most haven’t used them themselves.
Wally Waranka reports that this is
the first exhibition he feels he can navigate and enjoy almost entirely on his
own. In fact, he has brought his col-
Wild Music consultants test a prototype
spectrum analyzer for the Touchable
Sound exhibit. Photo by Wendy Hancock
leagues in the employment agency to
visit, hoping to inspire their approach
to workplace accommodations. ■
Wendy Pollock is ASTC’s director of
research, publications, and exhibitions.
J. Shipley Newlin is program director for
physical sciences at the Science Museum
of Minnesota, St. Paul. For more on
Wild Music, visit www.wildmusic.org.
By Philip Blackburn
s an environmental sound
artist, a composer who
went outside, I am interested in
sound as a public art form.
I make instruments powered by
the wind, write music for ships’
horns in harbors, and produce
concerts for conch shells, lithophones, and jumping beans.
Venuewise, experimental
composers are generally a
homeless bunch; for me,
Philip Blackburn led Sound Crew museums have become a
participants in gathering the field
welcome home. We share an
recordings that would later inform
open-ended sense of curiosity,
his work for Wild Music. Photo by
wonder, and discovery.
Kristen Murray
My involvement with Wild
Music began in 2005 with Sound Crew, a summer workshop for
youth I led in collaboration with Kristen Murray of the Science
Museum of Minnesota’s Youth Science Center. With support from
a local arts funder, we spent time wondering what this land of
10,000 lakes sounded like under water. We constructed hydrophones, took field trips, explored soundscapes, and made
recordings that I later used to compose a piece of music called
“Symphony in Sea” (available at www.wildmusic.org).
I also became involved in overall planning for Wild Music,
offering a musician’s perspective and ultimately composing a
soundtrack for the exhibition with advice from Victor Zupanc, a
theatrical sound designer. The hour-long, looping, six-channel
composition not only unifies the exhibition, but also provides a
distinguishing sense of place for each of its three main areas: the
Edge of the Forest, the Town, and the Ocean Deeps. All sounds
are 100 percent organic in origin—among them a Bulgarian
double flute, a Hmong reed pipe, an Aeolian harp catching the
wind, Samoan cicadas accompanied by human drummers, and
even a lawn sprinkler.
These sounds were slowed, filtered, and shaped to complement sound frequencies occupied by visitors and exhibits. The
resulting music, the ambient backbone, is generally low in pitch,
sustained, ever-changing, and subtly varied. Like a movie soundtrack, it provides aural space—a setting for the sounds of whales,
birds, musical tones, and human voices. The intended total mix
is about 40 percent ambient (the soundtrack), 40 percent exhibit
sounds, and 20 percent visitors’ conversation. No volume setting
is perfect for all crowd conditions, and we periodically fine-tune
the settings. At the request of our most constant audience, we
removed one high string sound that floor staff found intolerable.
Every visitor will experience a different perspective on the
overall composition, and different locations will provide new
challenges as speakers and sound levels are adjusted to
accommodate new floor plans. The result is likely to be somewhere between a work-in-progress and a living acoustic ecology.
With luck, visitors will be guided as much by their ears as by
their eyes and leave the space ready to explore the soundworld
outside with fresh attention and wonder. ■
Philip Blackburn is senior program director at the American Composers
Forum, St. Paul, Minnesota.
12
July/August 2007
•
ASTC Dimensions
Heureka’s ‘Music’:
Sound with a Sociocultural Perspective
By Mikko Myllykoski
S
cience centers are vivid and
Exhibits for social
socially sparkling places,
engagement
but they are also often
noisy and restless. At Finnish art
The Music exhibition would, of
museums, lone visitors make up
course, devote space to the physics
one-fifth of the audience, but at
of sound; that became the focus of
Heureka, the Finnish Science
the area we call “Play with
Centre, 99 percent of visitors
Sounds!” But we also included
arrive in company. Add to that
three areas that we hoped would
our modern architecture of conbe socially engaging for our audicrete, steel, and glass, and, closing
ence: “How Do We Experience
your eyes, you can imagine being
Music?,” “Sounds of Cultures,”
at a public swimming pool. It is a
and “Let’s Play Music.”
challenge to bring meaningful
Exhibits for the first two of
sound to this acoustic environthese areas were designed to break
ment, but that is what we decided
barriers by allowing visitors to
to try in 2005 with Heureka’s
share experiences:
traveling exhibition Music.
• Cultural similarities and difAny exhibition on music has
ferences can be felt in Beat Time!,
a high potential for offering
an exhibit based on joint research
audiences more than just wave
by Cornell and Jyväskylä universidiagrams. Music is a channel of
ties. The player is invited to clap
communication: Through music,
in time with four music samples
people share emotions. Music is
and then compare his/her own
performed together and enjoyed
performance with that of groups
together: It is a form of social
of American, African, and Euroglue and a celebration of companpean clappers. The message is
ionship. And, finally, music is an
that beat can be experienced difexpression of identity; the music
ferently, depending on culture.
A visitor to Heureka’s Music exhibition tries some licks
we choose to listen to tells someon the Virtual Air Guitar.
Perhaps the most striking example
Photo by Saila Puranen
thing about who we are.
is the African folk song “Mma
Heureka’s exhibition, we thereSelina,” where Europeans find
fore decided, should not be an isolated
percentage of Finns actively involved in
that they consistently clap a quarterand lonely experience. Blocking the
music making has been in decline: Bebeat behind the African pulse.
sound behind closed doors or cutting
tween 1981 and 2002, the percentage
• In What Makes Us Sing?, a quiz
the communication between visitors
of the population who said they played
about sociomusical practices, two to
by having them wear earphones would
an instrument dropped from 20 perfour players try to figure out what difnot be options. That was our first
cent to 14 percent, with a similar
ferent folk music samples are intended
challenge.
decline in the number who identified
to convey. Possibilities range from work
A second challenge became apparent
themselves as singers (6 percent of men
songs to wedding songs, from lullabies
as we interviewed visitors for the frontand 9 percent of women in 1981 vs.
to drinking songs. The task allows playend study. We learned that a great many
5 percent and 6 percent in 2002).
ers to draw on common ground and
people do not “consider themselves
To create an impact with our exhiyet still be charmed by the unique local
musical.” (“Not after the song test in
bition, we needed to take this trend
characteristics of the music.
school” was a typical self-assessment.)
seriously. “People who lack the experi• Songs About Us is a musical version
This result was reinforced by research
ence of making music” became the
of Heureka’s classic Language Globe.
from Statistics Finland showing that the
point of departure for our project.
Visitors can (Continued on page 14)
ASTC Dimensions
•
July/August 2007
13
Science Sonatas:
LISTENING TO DATA
By Stephen Pompea
I
first met Marty Quinn seven years
ago on the exhibit floor of a geophysics convention. You couldn’t
miss his booth; it was the one blaring
the music with tympani gone wild.
Titled Climate Symphony, Quinn’s
composition was not a rain dance
but a condensation of 110,000 years
of Earth’s climate into 7 minutes of
music. What the drums were pounding out, I would learn, was a massive
volcanic eruption that created high
dust levels in the atmosphere many
tens of thousands of years ago.
Quinn had converted climate data
gleaned from nearly two miles of
Greenland ice cores into symphonic
music. The levels of carbon dioxide,
methane, sulfates, potassium, dust,
and other gases recorded by the ice
over the millennia could have been
represented visually on strip graphs
stretching hundreds of feet. Instead,
Quinn had made the data more
accessible by converting it to music,
assigning each recorded variable a
different instrument.
It was marvelous to me that you
could understand all of the interrelated climate events just by listening to this one composition. Before
each repetition of his symphony,
Quinn gave a brief description of
which instrument “played” each data
set, allowing a careful listener to
discover in the music the long-term
changes in Earth’s climate, including
those pounding dust clouds.
The science of auditory
display
This process of “sonification,” using
nonspeech audio to convey information, is not only useful scientifically
but may have promising practical and
aesthetic applications. Not everyone
absorbs information best visually or by
In this depiction of
data used to generate
Marty Quinn’s “Rock
Around the Bow
Shock” composition,
vertical lines represent spacecraft crossing the bow shock
created where the
solar wind meets
Earth’s magnetosphere (inset).
Illustrations courtesy University of
New Hampshire Experimental
Space Plasma Group
using visualization tools. Sometimes
sound seems to be a better match for
complex, patterned information.
Sonification is not new. The Geiger
counter and even a church bell tolling
the time are examples of converting
data to sound. Auto mechanics work
on this principle, of course—or used
to, before cars had computers.
Imagine a power plant operator listening to all of the information that
would normally come from dials,
gauges, and computer screens: When
everything is going well, the sound is
melodic; when something starts to go
wrong, the music changes in a way
instantly apparent to the operator.
The human brain is naturally skilled in
listening to music.
Want to know if the numbers of pi
repeat themselves? Convert them to
musical notes of different pitch and
listen for patterns. Or imagine that
you can listen to and compare the
sequence of DNA from two people,
noting similarities or differences
through harmony. Mike Ballora at
Penn State and others have converted complex phenomena like electrocardiograms (EKGs) to music in a
novel approach to their analysis.
The driving force behind the effort
to analyze science data using sound
is the International Community for
Auditory Display (ICAD), which holds
meetings each year where papers are
given on topics from better train
whistles to conveying information to
the blind. An eclectic group, ICAD
represents the intersection of many
fields of study. Its directors range
from a staff member of the U.S.
Naval Research Lab to a representative of the Buddhist Clarity and Meta
Foundation. Many members are expert in several areas.
While the mature field of visualization has benefited from the success
of experts like Edward Tufte, whose
seminars on the best ways to create
14
July/August 2007
•
ASTC Dimensions
visual displays of quantitative information regularly draw crowds, the
field of sonification is still developing
its tools, techniques, and language.
But the idea of using sound to teach
or entertain the public is not new.
In 1970, at Columbia University,
Charles Dodge created a composition titled The Earth’s Magnetic
Field, which converted worldwide
magnetometer measurements to
music similar to Johann Sebastian
Bach’s to give a sense of how our
planet’s field changes with time. In
the mid-1990s, NASA’s Voyager 2
scientists used sonification to solve a
mystery that occurred when the
spacecraft traversed Saturn’s rings.
NASA’s Galileo mission team used it
to better understand their measurements of Jupiter.
Recently, Marty Quinn has designed sonifications (sometimes with
creative visualizations) to communicate the tides of Venice; seasonal
changes in the Martian ice caps
recorded by the Mars Gamma Ray
Spectrometer; data from spacecraft
studying space weather; and data on
ocean temperature that gives the
signature of El Niño.
Musical retellings
Creating the proper translation between data and sound is challenging.
Just mapping data from an Excel
spreadsheet to the pitch, timbre, or
volume of musical notes could be
overwhelming to a listener or, even
worse, painful to the ear.
The key, says Quinn, is “to create
a mapping system that makes it
possible to notice patterns and also
keep the listener’s interest.” That’s
what this engineer, who is also a
musician, strives to do in his New
Hampshire–based Design Rhythmics
Sonification Research Lab (http://
www.quinnarts.com).
Can sound help the public understand complex phenomena? In a
pilot project in Germany, weather
forecasts are already being turned
into a sensual experience in sound,
representing weather’s nine different
dimensions (variables) in music.
Quinn’s own Solar Songs was commissioned by the University of New
Hampshire’s Space Sciences Center
to communicate up to six variables of
space weather. One of his songs,
“Rock around the Bow Shock,” is of
interest to scientists who study the
shock wave that forms where the
solar wind interacts with the magnetic field of Earth. The area is of great
importance in studying the aurora
and the effect of solar storms on
satellites.
Quinn is working on a similar
project for the NASA STEREO
mission, along with the University of
California–Berkeley’s Space Sciences
Lab and the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium. He has even created a
musical retelling of the Northbridge,
California earthquake; Seismic Sonata
is based on the different kinds and
speeds of waves from the 1994
quake detected by a seismograph in
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
For auditory learners, and for
those looking to use the full range of
their senses, Quinn’s science translations of data into music are an
unusual but pleasant earful. In the
future, he predicts, sonification will
become a powerful component of
iconic exhibits at science centers. ■
Stephen Pompea (spompea@noao.
edu) is manager of science education
at the National Optical Astronomy
Observatory, Tucson, Arizona.
SONIFICATION
WEB SITES
International Community for
Auditory Display (ICAD)
http://www.icad.org
Source for new ideas on how
sound can be used, with links to
papers presented at past ICAD
conferences.
Sonification Examples
http://www.tomdukich.com
Weather and mathematical
constants, including pi.
Sounds of Jupiter from NASA’s
Galileo Spacecraft
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/sounds.
cfm
Sonification of NASA STEREO
Spacecraft Data
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/
impact/sounds.html
(Continued from page 12) rotate a big
globe and plug in at 90 spots to listen
to local folk music. Each song is
chosen as an example of how communities build and strengthen social
identity through songs. (This is one of
the few exhibits in Music that does
employ headphones.)
• How does music get written? In
Sound Wording, we devised an accessible way for visitors to experience composition by using words that imitate
sounds. Users can compare 40 onomatopoetic words in different languages
(Do the Swedish dunder and Finnish
jyrinä both sound like thunder?) and
incorporate their choices in a 30second composition that can have up to
five tracks. The software then plays this
“soundscape,” using predetermined natural sounds. The process is similar to
actual music composition and highly
accessible to many people.
Our greatest challenge was how to
turn visitors with no prior experience
of playing an instrument into musical
performers (and even members of a
band). In the final section of the exhibition, Let’s Play Music!, this is made
possible by the sensOrchestra, a quartet of novel instruments—a ball, a
bow, a stick, and a harp—that are
“played” by touching, slapping, hugging, or making simple hand movements. The music that ensues is
precomposed, but still includes possibilities for improvisation, creation,
and communication.
The bodily art of performing is
perhaps most accessible in the Virtual
Air Guitar exhibit. Here, a computer
is programmed to respond to the location and movements of a pair of orange
gardening gloves worn by the player.
Moving the gloves actually causes a
Stratocaster to sound—either with
power chords (riffs) or in a solo mode,
enabling Jimi Hendrix–like playing.
Testing the premise
This article began by citing the
acoustic limitations of Heureka’s environment. So, how well does Music
work within that environment?
Out of 24 exhibits, only one, Songs
ASTC Dimensions
About Us, is used exclusively with
headphones. For two where precise
listening is important (Test Musicality
in “How Do We Experience Music?”
and Play the Lahti Symphony in “Let’s
Play Music!”), we added optional
headphones to the exhibit speakers.
Otherwise, we found that it was
enough to set the exhibits in semiopen kiosks that have carpeting and
some 50 mm sound absorption material on the walls. Only two of the
exhibits have ceilings.
These structural choices were based
on the fact that the exhibition was
built to travel. Visitors seem happy
with the results. Our success will be
put to the test in 2008, when Music
will visit three science centers in
Mexico. ■
Mikko Myllykoski is experience director
at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre,
Vantaa, Finland; www.heureka.fi.
•
July/August 2007
15
The Sound of No Sound
A
s an interesting counterpoint to Music, Heureka will soon host Scenes of
Silence, a new traveling exhibition by social entrepreneur Andreas Heinecke and exhibit designer Orna Cohen. Heinecke’s earlier Dialogue in the Dark
exhibition offered sighted visitors an opportunity to share a multi-sensory experience in total darkness with visually impaired guides. Positive feedback from
that exhibition’s visitors set a high standard for Silence, which will open at
Heureka on November 24 and run through March 5, 2008.
In the exhibition, deaf “ambassadors” guide small groups of visitors wearing
noise-canceling headphones through rooms that are totally soundproof, exploring different aspects of nonverbal communication: gesture, facial expression,
body language, and sign language. The contrast of sound/no sound, facilitated
by a welcoming deaf guide, is intended to inspire a new appreciation of silence
and to make an important but insufficiently
understood way of communicating tangible
to all visitors.
“After an hour and a quarter in the world
of silence together with a deaf guide,”
says Heinecke, “hands, faces, and bodies
start to speak, express, and exchange.
People with different backgrounds can
meet, share, and understand.” A permanent
installation of Scenes of Silence opened in A deaf guide introduces Scenes of
Rendsburg, Germany, in January 2007
Silence visitors to the basics of sign
(www.schattensprache.de).—M.M.
language. Photo © G2 Baraniak
Sound Resources
Bad Vibes
www.sound101.org
Join the hunt for the worst sound in
the world with the U.K.’s Acoustic
Research Centre and Museum of
Science & Industry in Manchester.
Sonic Arts Network
www.sonicartsnetwork.org
A U.K. organization that works to
enable audiences and practitioners
to engage with the art of sound in
accessible and innovative ways.
Classroom Acoustics: A Resource
for Creating Learning Environments
with Desirable Listening Conditions
http://asa.aip.org/classroom/
booklet.html
Prepared in 2000 for the Acoustical
Society of America’s Technical Committee on Architectural Acoustics, this
publication summarizes research on
sound in learning environments.
SoundLab@Princeton
http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu
Free software from this site was used
to create the sound visualizer in Wild
Music’s theater presentation.
Dangerous Decibels
www.dangerousdecibels.org/
virtualexhibit.cfm
A virtual version of the SEPA-funded
project developed in 2001 by OMSI,
the Oregon Health and Science University, the Veterans Affairs National
Center for Rehabilitative Auditory
Research, and the American Tinnitus
Assocation. (See ASTC Dimensions,
March/April 2001.)
This Is Your Brain on Music
www.yourbrainonmusic.com
An online resource for the 2006 book
of the same name by record producer
turned McGill University neuroscientist
Daniel J. Levitin. The site features an
interactive map of the brain, clips of
music examples cited in the book,
and an annotated bibliography.
World Forum for Acoustic Ecology
http://interact.uoregon.edu/
MediaLit/WFAE/home
WFAE is “a multidisciplinary spectrum
of individuals engaged in the study of
the social, cultural, and ecological as-
pects of the sonic environment.” The
site’s extensive online library includes
articles, theses, “soundwalks,” links to
related organizations, and more.
SOUND AND MUSIC IN MUSEUMS
A sampling of current exhibitions on
sound and/or music developed by
ASTC-member institutions:
• Digital Studio, Sci-Tech, Perth,
Australia
• Hear Here, Montshire Museum of
Science, Norwich, Vermont
• Music, Heureka, The Finnish
Science Centre (see page 12)
• Listen: Making Sense of Sound, The
Exploratorium (see page 5)
• Shapes of Sound, Explora,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Sound Bum Project: Let’s Listen to
the Sounds of the World!, Miraikan,
Tokyo, Japan
• Strike a Chord: The Science of
Music, Questacon, the National
Science Centre, Canberra, Australia
• Wild Music, ASTC, SMM, and
UNC–Greensboro (see page 8).
—Compiled by Wendy Pollock and
Carolyn Sutterfield
16
July/August 2007 •
ASTC Dimensions
Experts Enliven
ASTC 2007
O
ne of the great pleasures of any
ASTC Annual Conference is the
array of talented and successful speakers who accept our invitation to share
their expertise with the science center
field. ASTC 2007—hosted October
13–16 in Los Angeles by the California
Science Center—is no exception.
In addition to keynoter Geoffrey
Canada (see ASTC Dimensions, May/
ASTC Notes
June 2007), delegates can choose
from a half-dozen featured speaker
sessions:
• Lawrence Bender and Davis
Guggenheim, producer and director,
respectively, of the Oscar-winning
An Inconvenient Truth, will review the
strategies that helped them design an
illustrated science lecture compelling
enough for theatrical release.
• Internationally recognized neuroscience researcher Antonio Damasio,
of the University of Southern California, will explore with us “The Scien-
Calendar
JUNE
7–9
8
SEPTEMBER
CASC Annual
Conference. Hosted
by TELUS World of
Science–Edmonton,
Alberta. Details: www.
canadiansciencecentres.ca/
conferences.htm
World Ocean Day.
Sponsored by the World
Ocean Network and The
Ocean Project. Details:
www.worldoceannetwork.org
19–22 2007 ASPAC Conference.
“Bridging Gaps in Innovative
Ways.” Hosted by Miraikan,
Tokyo, Japan. Details:
[email protected]
JULY
17–21 Visitor Studies Association Conference.
“Evaluation and Diversity:
Listening to Many Voices.”
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Details: www.
visitorstudies.org
25–27 BIG Event 2007.
Annual gathering of the
British Interactive Group.
Hosted by Magna Science
Adventure Center, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, U.K.
Details: www.big.uk.com
23–25 Giant Screen Cinema
Association Conference.
Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada. Details: www.
giantscreencinema.com
24–29 21st Annual Theatre in
Museums Workshop.
Children’s Museum of
Indianapolis, Indiana. Enroll
by August 17. Details: Patricia
Daily, patriciad@
childrensmuseum.org
OCTOBER
2–6
Southeastern Museums
Conference Annual
Meeting. Little Rock,
Arkansas. Details: www.
semcdirect.net
13–16 ASTC Annual Conference. “Lights, Camera,
Action: From Vision to
Reality.” Hosted by the
California Science Center,
Los Angeles. Early bird
deadline: August 10. Details:
www.astc.org/conference
JUNE 2008
15–20 5th Science Centre
World Congress. Hosted
by the Ontario Science
Centre, Toronto, Canada.
Details: www.5scwc.org
For information on ASTC RAPs, visit www.astc.org/profdev/. For updated events
listings, click on ‘Calendar’ at www.astc.org.
tific Study of Emotion and Its Relevance to the Science Museum Field.”
• Master storyteller Kendall Haven
will weave current climate science with
classic elements of storytelling to reveal
how scientists solved the great Greenland Ice Sheet Mystery.
• Wayne Hunt, principal of Hunt
Design Associates, will shed light on
the often misunderstood but culturally
integral topic of branding.
• Discovery Factual Networks executive Jane Root will explore the whys
and hows of making science sexy for
television.
• Richard Sorensen, a leading expert
on the Tax Exempt Trust and other
forms of charitable planning, will
outline strategies and techniques for
developing a planned gift program in
line with your organization’s needs.
As a special bonus, the ASTC
Annual Banquet (scheduled this year
on Saturday evening) will feature
“POLAR-PALOOZA,” a preview of a
National Science Foundation– and
NASA-supported education and
outreach tour on polar research that
will launch simultaneously October 18
at the San Diego Museum of Natural
History, the Reuben H. Fleet Science
Center, and the Birch Aquarium at
Scripps.
This energetic, fast-paced afterdinner presentation, richly illustrated
with high-definition video clips,
evocative soundscapes, and authentic
artifacts, will be introduced by Andy
Revkin, award-winning environment
reporter at the New York Times and
author of The North Pole Was Here:
Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the
World.
Also featured on the program are
the following International Polar Year
scientists and associates:
• Waleed Abdalati, head of the
Cryospheric Sciences Branch at NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center
• Alberto Behar, NASA/JPL engineer
and developer of robots that record the
working of “ice streams” in Antarctica
and “moulins” in Greenland
• Richard Glenn (via video), geologist, whaling captain, Inupiat community leader, and board member of the
ASTC Dimensions
Among the featured speakers scheduled for
ASTC 2007 are neuroscientist Antonio
Damasio, left, and exobiologist Darlene Lim.
Photos, left, by Phil Channing and, right, courtesy
Darlene Lim
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation
• Darlene Lim, exobiologist, SETI
Institute, Mountain View, California
• Stephanie Pfirman, oceanographer
and professor at Columbia University’s
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
New York.
For updated information on ASTC
2007 and a downloadable registration
form, visit www.astc.org/conference.
Discounted “early bird” registration
closes on August 10.
Wanted: Tomorrow’s
Museum Leaders
D
uring March 2007, ASTC and
the Noyce Foundation carried
out a study to inform plans for a program that would identify, prepare, and
support the next generation of science
center leaders. Among its findings:
• Most CEOs have come from
science centers (21%) and other
museums (18%) or nonprofits (20%).
Another 16% worked previously in
education.
• 48% of current CEOs have been
in their jobs for 5 years or less.
• Among smaller institutions (operating budgets <$2.5 million), 38%
have CEOs who have
been in their jobs
for a decade or
longer, compared
with 26% at larger
centers.
• 11% of current
CEOs have MBA
degrees, compared
with 1% of their
predecessors. The
number with PhDs
is down to 19%,
compared with
34% of their
predecessors.
• 92% of CEOs
surveyed and 100% of
board members reported
that they do not have a formal succession plan.
• The number of female CEOs has
increased from 34% to 54% overall;
among institutions with budgets
<$1 million, 74% of current CEOs are
women.
We asked CEOs what kinds of
professional development would have
helped them most around the time
they assumed their positions. Answers
included managing people and fostering teamwork (37%); finance (26%),
and governance issues and board relations (22%). Both CEOs and board
members expressed strong support for
a leadership development program.
A task force headed by ASTC Fellows and retired CEOs Alan Friedman
and Sheila Grinell will work with the
Noyce Foundation in coming months
to develop plans for a leadership development program. The ASTC Board of
Directors endorsed the project at its
recent meeting in Chicago. A vision is
emerging of a highly effective, widely
recognized, and multifaceted program
focused on both creating a deep pool
of well-trained executive directors and
senior managers for the field and supporting newly hired executive directors
once they are in place.
For the full report of the study,
contact Wendy Pollock, wpollock@
astc.org.
•
July/August 2007
17
Not Just a Game
P
layed by groups around the world,
DECIDE (www.playdecide.org) is
a debate game designed to engage
citizens more directly in discussion and
decision making around science and
technology issues and/or policies that
affect their lives.
Based on this model, a game about
global warming has been developed for
ASTC’s IGLO initiative by Claire
Pillsbury of Chabot Space & Science
Center, Oakland, California. It is currently being tested for local adaptation
by museum participants in Italy, Portugal, Australia, India, South Africa,
and the United States.
On October 4, the Global Warming
Game will be featured as part of an
“International Conversation on Global
Warming,” a joint project of IGLO,
the Yale School of Forestry and the
Environment, and ICLEI, an international association of local governments
committed to sustainable development. Results will be discussed at the
5th Science Centre World Congress,
hosted by the Ontario Science Centre,
June 15–20, 2008.
To participate in the October 4
event, contact Walter Staveloz,
[email protected].
ExhibitFiles Nears 200
Members
L
aunched in April, ExhibitFiles
(www.ExhibitFiles.org) registered
its 184th member on May 31. Practitioners from all museum fields and
all nations are welcome to join the
National Science Foundation–funded
ASTC site. Among the exhibition case
studies posted so far by the online
community are old favorites, such as
Psychology and Greenhouse Earth, and
current offerings, like Plants Are Up to
Something, the Huntington Library
and Botanical Gardens’ 2007 winner
of AAM’s “Excellence in Exhibitions”
competition. Registrants are welcome
to post exhibition reviews as well, or to
add their own comments to reviews
and case studies. ■
18
July/August 2007 •
ASTC Dimensions
Spotlights
By Christine Ruffo
An elaborate climbing structure welcomes
visitors to the newly expanded Boston
Children’s Museum. Photo courtesy Boston
Children’s Museum
OLD, NEW, AND GREEN—On
April 14, the Boston Children’s
Museum opened its expanded
73,000-square-foot facility along
Boston’s historic waterfront. The
institution’s renovated 19th-century
wool warehouse and adjacent new
building feature an array of permanent
exhibitions focused on science, culture, the environment, health and fitness, and the arts—with an emphasis
on local influences throughout.
Boston Black: A City Connects illustrates the diversity of Boston’s Black
community. Visitors can decorate a
Haitian parade float for the AfroCaribbean Carnival, catch up on
neighborhood news at John Smith’s
Barber Shop, or dance the funana at
the Cape Verdean Café Fogo.
Boats Afloat allows children to explore the urban marine environment.
Guests can launch boats, build barges,
and even change the tides in an 800gallon, 28-foot replica of the Fort
Point Channel.
Local performance troupes have
partnered with the museum to create
interactive experiences. In Air Play,
visitors can try to make music on
PVC instruments the way Blue Man
Group does, and City Stage, a professional company specializing in educational children’s theater, gives daily
performances of original, participatory plays in the museum’s new
160-seat KidStage theater.
Elements of sustainable design
qualify the new facility for the U.S.
Building Council’s LEED Certification.
These include a 6,400-square-foot
green roof installed with the help of
guest scientists and visitors, a stormwater reclamation system to prevent
polluted runoff into Boston Harbor,
and HVAC controls that measure carbon dioxide to determine the exact
amount of heating and cooling needed
for every area of the building.
The final phase of the project, the
park that will connect the museum to
the waterfront, will open in September,
featuring mazes, giant boulders, and
an adventure garden of New England
flora. The $47 million expansion and
renovation project was designed by
Cambridge Seven Associates and
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.
Details: Rick Stockwood, director
of public relations, stockwood@
bostonchildrensmuseum.org
THE OLD WEST—The Ancient
Americas, a permanent exhibition that
opened March 9 at Chicago’s Field
Museum of Natural History, invites visitors to explore pre-European
societies of the western hemisphere.
The 19,000-square-foot exhibition features both artifacts and interactive exhibits in seven galleries.
Ice Age Americans immerses visitors
in an animated scene depicting the
sights and sounds of the northern
Illinois landscape 13,000 years ago.
Hands-on exhibits include replicas of
mammoth and mastodon teeth, as well
as spear points devised by the Clovis
people to hunt the giant mammals.
The disappearance of large animals
meant the beginning of cultural diversity in the Americas as different peoples spread out across the continents in
search of food. In Innovative HuntersGatherers, visitors can explore a “food
wall” to learn the origins of presentday foods, like tomatoes, corn, and
chocolate. In Farming Villagers, they
can see how agriculture led to the
development of permanent villages. A
walk-through pueblo home provides a
glimpse of daily village life.
Gradually, cultures transitioned from
egalitarian to stratified societies. In New
Style of Leader, a computer station
lets visitors “fly over” ceremonial sites
of the Midwestern, mound-building
Hopewell people, zooming in to investigate chosen locations in greater detail.
Displayed here are luxury items developed as status symbols for leaders.
Eventually, larger and more complex
settlements appeared in Mesoamerica
and the Andes. Visitors to Rulers and
Citizens can examine a fragment of
stone with Maya glyphs and push a
button to hear a modern-day Mayan
speaker read the text. Empire Builders
takes visitors back to the powerful, but
short-lived Aztec and Incan empires.
Models of marketplaces and interactive
maps of roads and canal systems
demonstrate the importance of trade in
these vast empires.
Finally, in The Conquest and Beyond:
Living Descendants, videos explore
present-day native communities’ connections to the past, as well as new
traditions they are creating for future
generations.
Major funding for the exhibition
was provided by the McCormick
Tribune Foundation, Mr. and Mrs.
Michael W. Ferro, Jr., Mr. and Mrs.
Miles D. White, the Abbott Fund, and
the ITW Foundation.
Details: www.fieldmuseum.org/
ancientamericas
Visitors can virtually piece together fragments of
replica pots to learn more about farming cultures
in The Ancient Americas. Photo by Christine Ruffo
THE VERY OLD DOMINION—
What did Virginia look like millions of
years ago? The Virginia Museum of
Natural History (VMNH) invites
guests to explore the commonwealth’s
past through today’s science at its new
facility in Martinsville. The design of
ASTCASTC
Dimensions
• January/February
Dimensions
• July/August2007
2007
Gracing the new Piedmont Great Hall
of the expanded Virginia Museum of
Natural History is a 14-million-year-old
baleen whale skeleton recovered from
a Virginia quarry. Photo courtesy VMNH
the 89,000-square-foot expansion,
which began its rolling opening on
March 28, allows visitors to observe
the museum’s eight scientist-curators
at work and then step into the role of
scientists themselves through interactive exhibits.
Visitors enter the museum though
the Piedmont Great Hall, home to a
suspended 14-million-year-old baleen
whale skeleton unearthed in a Virginia
quarry. Three working labs are visible
from the Great Hall—the vertebrate
paleontology lab, where VMNH scientists prepare vertebrate fossils; the
archaeology lab, where bones and
artifacts are catalogued; and the
scanning electron microscope lab,
where researchers can view artifacts in
minute detail.
The next gallery, Uncovering Virginia,
features re-creations of six research sites
where museum scientists have worked,
complete with fossils and artifacts from
300 million years ago to 300 years ago.
Each recreation includes a lab experience in which visitors can examine and
interpret archaeological evidence using
the same tools as the scientists; they can
also view video animation of animals
and plants from each particular era and
place. Other planned permanent exhibitions include How Nature Works:
Rocks and How Nature Works: Life.
To coincide with this year’s 400th
anniversary of the founding of
Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, VMNH
developed a traveling exhibition,
Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians
Yesterday and Today. Running through
January 2008, the exhibition examines
Virginia history from the perspective
of the region’s native peoples. Also on
display are contemporary beadwork,
leather craft, pottery, and drawings by
Virginia Indian artisans.
The Virginia Museum of Natural
History is a state agency under the
supervision of the Secretary of Natural
Resources. Major funding for the
$28 million project was provided by
the Commonwealth of Virginia. An
ongoing $5 million capital campaign
by the museum’s foundation will fund
new permanent exhibitions.
Details: Ryan Barber, director,
marketing and external affairs,
[email protected]
BACK FOR A BOW—Does your
museum’s storage area bulge with
beloved exhibits you can’t bear to discard? Do nostalgic visitors constantly
ask you, “Whatever happened to ...?”
In Texas, the Fort Worth Museum
of Science and History has
brought back some of its classic crowd
pleasers in a temporary, 5,000-squarefoot exhibition, Stories from the Attic:
65 Years of Exhibitions.
The museum, which recently broke
ground for its new Ricardo Legoretta–
designed building scheduled to open in
19
19
2009, wanted to give long-time area
residents an opportunity to remember
their earliest experiences at the museum and share them with their families.
Highlights of the exhibition include
Astrid, the “transparent woman,”
whose circulatory and nervous systems
light up with the push of a button; a
pair of fighting Allosaurus and Camptosaurus skeletons; the 100-pound Blue
Mound meteorite found in Texas in
1979; and minerals that glow under
ultraviolet light. Complementing the
popular artifacts are stories of real
people influenced by early visits to the
museum. Among them are researcher
Wann Langston, widely considered to
be the father of Texas paleontology,
and nature artists Stuart and Scott
Gentling, who first saw a book of John
J. Audubon’s paintings at the museum.
Stories from the Attic will remain on
display through September 3.
Details: Margaret Ritsch, director of
public affairs, [email protected] ■
”Astrid,” a transparent mannequin
first introduced in
1964, makes a
return appearance
in Stories from the
Attic. Photo courtesy
Fort Worth Museum of
Science and History
Grants & Awards
As part of A.G. Edwards’ “Nest Egg Knowledge for Kids” program, the U.S. brokerage
company has awarded $25,000 to Explorium, Lexington, Kentucky, to teach financial
literacy to local 4th graders. The science center, in partnership with Junior Achievement
of the Bluegrass, will work with teachers to help students understand the basics of
earning, budgeting, spending, and saving money.
Conservation grants awarded in 2007 by the Institute for Museum and Library Services,
Washington, D.C., include the following to ASTC members:
• Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii: $28,447 for conservation treatment of three
historic Hawaiian feather cloaks (‘ahu ‘ula).
• Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois: $131,794 to treat a collection of Chinese rubbings.
• Newark Museum Association, Newark, New Jersey: $33,000 to purchase and install
new storage cabinets to rehouse the museum’s ceramics and glass collections.
• Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut:
$100,353 to purchase and install 40 museum-quality storage cabinets to rehouse
collections of microscope slides in its Invertebrate Zoology, Vertebrate Zoology, Paleobotany, and Mineralogy Divisions.
20
People
July/August 2007 • ASTC Dimensions
Recent appointments at the Museum
of Science, Boston, include Richard
Y. Blumenthal as senior vice president and publisher of the National
Center for Technology Literacy, and
Emily Bottis as director of interactive media. Bottis was most recently
manager and designer of the museum’s web sites, and Blumenthal was
previously manager of K–12 product
development at The Princeton Review.
■
■
■
■
■
Christopher Reich, director and
CEO of the Putnam Museum and
IMAX Theatre, Davenport, Iowa,
since 1996, resigned in February to
accept a position as senior grant program specialist with the Institute of
Museum and Library Sciences, Washington, D.C. Succeeding him as CEO
is Mark Bawden, a 22-year veteran
of the museum’s board of trustees.
■
■
■
■
■
After 23 years at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, director of
visitor programs R.L. “Chip” Lindsey left in April to take up a newly
created position as associate director of
the Don Harrington Discovery Center
(DHDC), Amarillo, Texas. He joins
new DHDC director Joe Hastings,
who was most recently director of
Science Station, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
■
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■
■
■
SciTech Hands-On Museum, Aurora,
Illinois, announces the appointment of
Shawn Carlson as executive director,
effective June 1. Carlson, a 1999
MacArthur Fellow honored for his contribution to informal science education,
founded the nonprofit Society for Amateur Scientists (www.sas.org) in 1994
and has served as a regular columnist
for Scientific American magazine. He
replaces Ronen Mir, who returned to
his native Israel to become deputy
director of MadaTech, in Haifa.
■
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■
■
■
Effective June 1, Stephanie Ratcliffe is the director of the Wild
Center/Natural History Museum of the
Adirondacks, Tupper Lake, New York.
Ratcliffe, who worked previously at the
Maryland Science Center, had served
on the museum’s exhibition development team for the past five years. She
succeeds Elizabeth M. Lowe, who
left to become head of New York
State’s Department of Environmental
Conservation, Region 5.
Association of Science-Technology Centers
1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005-6310
Address Service Requested
Gretchen Jennings, director of
education for interpretation and visitor
experience at the National Museum of
American History, retired in April after
15 years with the Smithsonian. A former editor-in-chief of the Journal of
Museum Education, she will take over
this fall as editor of the National Association for Museum Exhibition’s journal, The Exhibitionist.
■
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We join with the Ann Arbor Hands-On
Museum, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in
mourning the death of University of
Michigan physics professor, National
Medal of Science winner, and longtime
museum volunteer H. Richard Crane.
A lifelong tinkerer, Crane, who died
April 19 at age 99, wrote the “How
Things Work” column for The Physics
Teacher journal while teaching at
Michigan; after retiring, he became a
regular at the museum, building and
repairing many exhibits and even writing a book, How to Build It and Keep It
Working. An April 21 Ann Arbor News
obituary quotes the museum’s founding director, Cynthia Yao, on the subject of Crane: “He reveled in the
knowledge that kids enjoyed the exhibits so much,” she said. ■
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