Faculty of Education

The idea of didactic transposition arose in science education research in school contexts, but has relevance also to informal learning contexts such as museums. In the past decade, museum researchers have used the framework of museographic transposition to study how museum exhibitions are created. The framework has gradually developed in three directions which focus on epistemology, semiotics, and sociology, respectively. We review the existing work on museographic transposition to illustrate these three directions and to discuss the merits of each of them.

Museums are in a unique position to engage the public in conversations about science topics that matter. However, when we attempt to systematically study the representation and dissemination of science in museums, we are confounded by the numerous and diverse conditions and constraints that influence those processes. As a response, we adapt a framework from the field of science didactics, the framework of didactic co-determination, to the museum context. We illustrate how the framework can be applied to a case of exhibit development to understand the influences that shape the final product. We then offer our perspectives on the framework, and suggest how its utility may go beyond the local application described here.

Exhibitions are the primary medium for the public communication of science in museums. Recently, there has been an interest in explaining the educational mechanisms of exhibitions in terms of meaning making, interaction and space; however these concepts have not yet been integrated into one consistent framework. Here, we invoke the notions of affordance and distributed cognition to explain in a coherent way how
visitors interact with exhibits and exhibit spaces and make meaning from those interactions, and we exemplify our points using observations of twelve visitors to exhibits at a natural history museum. We show how differences in exhibit characteristics give rise to differences in the interpretive strategies used by visitors in their meaning-making process, and conclude by discussing how the notions of affordance and distributed cognition can be used in an exhibit design perspective.

As teorias de currículo, que muitas vezes parecem estar voltadas apenas à educação formal, trazem reflexões muito mais amplas que dizem respeito as formas como a sociedade se relaciona com o conhecimento e legitima a produção, seleção e apropriação da cultura. A complexidade da produção dos discursos e textos das exposições e outras atividades educacionais realizadas nos museus, podem ser analisados desde um ponto de vista das relações de poder, tal como é proposto por eixos de investigação das teorias críticas do currículo. Essa compreensão da educação museal traz a tona uma série de possibilidade analíticas.
Apresentamos aqui aspectos de pesquisas que fazem uso da teoria sobre o funcionamento do Dispositivo Pedagógico proposta por Basil Bernstein, com enfoque na análise dos discursos e no processo de recontextualização. Consideramos para tal, que os discursos expositivos e aqueles presentes nas atividades educativas desenvolvidas pelas instituições museais analisadas, são discursos pedagógicos construídos por meio de processos de recontextualização.

In this paper, we identify some milestones in the construction process for mobile science museums and centres in Brazil. As background for presenting the Brazilian context, we initially address the records found on the earliest travelling museum exhibitions and mobile museums in Europe and North America. We then introduce the role of UNESCO in the promotion and implementation of travelling science exhibitions and museums in several countries. Finally, we document important events in the history of mobile science museum and centres in Brazil and outline three general and interrelated challenges currently faced by them. Abstract History of public communication of science; Popularization of science and technology, Science centres and museums

RESUMO Os museus e centros de ciências são fontes importantes de conhecimento, e eles vêm contri-buindo para o aprimoramento da cultura científica, para a educação em ciências e, consequente-mente, para a percepção pública do papel da CT&I no desenvolvimento científico e tecnológico do País. Entretanto, no Brasil, o número de visitas a essas instituições ainda é muito reduzido. Então, se as pessoas não vão aos museus, os museus vão a elas. Esse é o papel dos museus e centros de ciências itinerantes, que surgiram como alternativa para enfrentar o desafio da divul-gação científica descentralizada dos núcleos urbanos, atendendo, assim, a um grande número de pessoas. No presente trabalho, que é a reflexão inicial de uma pesquisa de doutorado em ensino de ciências, faremos uma retomada histórica desses projetos no País, e discutiremos alguns desafios da divulgação científica itinerante. Palavras-chave: museus itinerantes; centros de ciências itinerantes; divulgação científica; inclusão social. ABSTRACT Museums and science centers are important knowledge sources and contribute to the improvement of scientific culture and science education, thus enhancing public understanding of ST&I's role in scientific and technological development of the country. However, in Brazil the number of visits to science museum is still very low. So, if people do not go to museums, museums can go them. This is the role of travelling science museums and centers, which emerged as an alternative to meet the challenge of making science communication decentralized from urban centers. In the present essay, which is an initial reflection of a doctoral research in Science Education, we produce a historic review of these projects in the country and discuss some traveling science communication challenges.