¹ IUFM de Paris, 10 rue Molitor, 75016 Paris and LIREST, ENS de Cachan

guichard@paris.iufm.fr

Summary:

Popularizing the study of biology pertains to the popularization of education overall, especially with the development of in-school use of scientific exhibitions and multimedia demonstrations. Yet, knowledge representation systems differ between exhibitions and school activities. Nevertheless, the diversity of intellectual mechanisms at work during the operation of such support devices allows incorporating the various categories of students and audiences.

Research conducted on "hands-on" interactivity (exhibitions and multimedia) in the field of biology have demonstrated the value of taking children's ideas into account (in the choice of content presentation) and of relying upon familiar reference practices in designing exhibits (in producing devices with entirely comprehensible use instructions). Indeed, audiences possess neither the appropriate background nor the inquisitive eye of the scientist. It is therefore necessary to test prototypes (in order to uncover obstacles in the transmission of knowledge through creating objects or images).

Research has shown the importance of conditions for stimulating curiosity, envy, emotion, playfulness, inquisitiveness and interaction (both with and between users), while nurturing the pleasure of discovering biology.

Key-words:

Scientific popularization, exhibition, multimedia

Résumé :

La question de la vulgarisation de la biologie rejoint celle de l’éducation, en particulier avec le développement de l’utilisation scolaire d’expositions scientifiques et de multimédia. Mais le rapport au savoir y est différent de celui qui est perçu à l’école. Pourtant la diversité des cheminements intellectuels lors de l’usage de ces dispositifs permet de prendre en compte la diversité des publics et celle des enfants d’une classe.

Les recherches menées sur des interactifs (exposition et multimédia) traitant de biologie démontrent l’intérêt de la prise en compte des appuis et les obstacles des publics, à la fois en terme de conceptions (pour choisir l’approche des contenus exposés) et de pratiques familières (afin de produire des dispositifs dont l'utilisation soit directement compréhensible). En effet les publics n’ont pas ni le background, ni le questionnement du scientifique. D’où la nécessité de tests de prototypes (pour découvrir certains obstacles à la compréhension liés à la mise en objet ou en image).

Les recherches montrent aussi l’importance des conditions pour mettre en situation active de découverte au moyen de dispositifs qui déclenchent curiosité, envie, émotion, jeu, questionnement et interactions avec et entre les utilisateurs, afin de développer le plaisir de la découverte de la biologie.

Mots clés :

Vulgarisation scientifique, exposition, multimédia

 

The issue of popularizing biology relates to that of popularizing education as a whole, with the development of in-school use of scientific exhibits and multimedia. Our experiment has been based on research conducted during the creation of an exhibition (the "Children's City" at the La Villette Museum of Science and Industry in Paris) and multimedia projects (the "ecological balance" Planet project). It has led us to analyze more closely the characteristics of this particular approach to disseminating scientific knowledge. This approach then incited us to develop some fundamental concepts for creating multimedia tools (e.g. exhibits, CD-ROMs).

1. The impact of exhibits or multimedia tools depends on the knowledge representation system

Designers (and especially teachers electing to use such tools with their students) are seeking a strong impact from "hands-on" exhibits. Often however, a level of incomprehension exists between scientists and designers: scientists are looking to transmit knowledge, whereas designers focus on how to make exhibitions attractive. The public grasps a feel for the setting but does not always perceive the knowledge being conveyed. Scientists consider this frequent problem to be caused by designers' inability to incorporate advice from the scientific community. Designers, on the other hand, reply that exhibitions are not intended to transmit knowledge, but rather are produced for pleasure or aesthetic enjoyment. This commonly-encountered incomprehension between scientists and exhibition designers can be overcome if they are able to mutually identify the knowledge representation system of exhibition visitors.

The same knowledge representation system does not apply during an exhibition visit (such as running a multimedia product or reading a scientific journal) and inside the classroom. During an exhibition visit, for example, the student is not satisfied to simply listen and follow instructions, like in the classroom. He is immersed in an environment, explores with his feet, perceives with all senses, and on occasion interacts directly with his hands. He is seeking the pleasure of discovery: he moves about and acts freely.

 

Popularization cannot merely take into account the relation between users and scientific information. The difficulty lies not only in the realm of scientific knowledge, but in the knowledge representation system of the users as well, given their perception of the sciences and the possibility offered to gain scientific knowledge. The knowledge representation system is composed of the receptive state (with pleasure, emotion and interest developed by the media). The context plays a fundamental role herein, because it determines the conditions under which meaning actually emerges. Users' knowledge representation system is psychological, physical and intellectual all at the same time.

The "knowledge popularizer" is not only concerned with the text component of the knowledge message, but must first convey the desire to discover information and get involved in the exhibit. Moreover, in creating exhibitions, it is necessary to take the diversity of the audience as well as their level of intellectual stimulation into account.

2. The specificity of popularized media

The exhibit designer's role is to transpose a particular element of knowledge in order to convey it to visitors.² They must first select the scientific information from the particular discipline (choosing information, defining the exhibit's goals, extracting contents). They then set up a conceptual restructuring of the relations among the information elements (defining messages, organizing the theme, deriving the general concept). Lastly, they "objectify" scientific knowledge (transposing information, choosing the means of communication and technical aids). The fundamental difference between teacher and "popularizer" is the absence of a direct relationship between the popularizer and his public. Also, the production process cannot benefit from direct feedback, as with a teacher and his students. An exhibit designer transposes the scientific goal by relying upon his own reference practices. Visitors (children or students) will decipher the exhibit according to their own representations, which are no doubt different from those of the designer. It is important to take account of children's ideas and reference practices when designing exhibits. As children do not share the same knowledge base, reference practices or concept control as adults, we must favor a level of conceptualization that can be readily understood by children.

 

 

It is important to take into account the public's ideas and reference practices when designing exhibits as well, again given the fact that children do not share the same knowledge base, reference practices and concept control as adults. In the end, we must still favor a level of conceptualization that can be readily understood by children. It is necessary for the field of popularization to anticipate and test this interaction by means of a two-stage evaluation/diagnosis: a preliminary study of user ideas and skills, followed by the building and testing of prototypes.

3. Knowing the public's conceptions

Numerous studies ³ have focused on learners' conceptions and showed their importance during a teaching process. Individuals all interpret phenomena through their own "frame of reference". For example, our preconceptions of the digestive or breathing processes are completely false, in spite of the lessons taught at school.⁴

Research conducted on "hands-on" interactivity (exhibitions and multimedia) have demonstrated the value of identifying obstacles for the public, in terms of both ideas (in choosing scientific information) and typical practices (in producing a "hands-on" interface whose use is entirely comprehensible). A solid awareness of the public's interest, expectations, ideas, reference practices and preconceptions is thus essential in predicting and developing media-based learning situations.⁵

This approach is used in order to reply to questions raised by the "popularizer": who uses my exhibit? how does it concern them? what are their questions, their expectations? how do users give meaning to exhibits? will they be able to grasp the content? how can misconceptions be avoided?

Once the public's questions and level of understanding have been fully ascertained, we are in a position to: limit the frequent gaps arising between the public and "knowledge popularizers", better target the resultant impacts, find situations and arguments to convince users, and define a powerful message / conceptual level or type of language to employ.

4. Adapting to reference practices

Among the set of supports and obstacles to take into account during the creation of an exhibit, typical user practices or attitudes are fundamental. Children and adults have a different relationship with objects and situations. When it comes to equipment for observation and manipulation, attention must be paid not just to the spontaneous reactions on the part of youngsters faced with a switch or lever to turn, a bottle to feel, a magnifying glass to use, etc., but also to their perception of the model presented (when beyond their knowledge base). This connection between model and reality is only understood by the public if the model has been built by taking their conceptions into account.⁶

For example, in the "my favorite smell" exhibit, at the Paris "Children's City" exhibition for 3- to 5-year olds, our purpose was for the youngsters to be able to recognize each smell. We thus had to find the most evocative and ergonomic way for children to spontaneously put their nose on the spot where the smell emanates and help them analyze it (3-year-old children have a mental image of smells). If a series of smells were offered on a horizontal tray pierced with holes, children would use their finger; if the tray were slanted or vertical, they would try looking through or using their ear. However, if smells are emerging from a funnel-shaped device, they spontaneously move their mouth and nose forward to capture the sensation.

Even designs of levers and switches have their significance. In the exhibition entitled "Technocité", the modification of switches, which have to be pushed to activate the study topic, has changed the behavior of young visitors.

When in front of large switches, they tap their fist without even observing the results of their action. In front of small switches sunk into the table however, they can only push with their forefinger, which means focusing their attention for a longer time and allowing them to discover the exhibit's purpose. Exhibit design also plays a role ; prototype testing has made it possible to discover that the presentation of the laboratory's anthill did not enable visitors to understand the configuration and functioning of an anthill, because its artificial appearance and layout provided erroneous representations of the anthill's natural structure.

Children love action and surprises. They cannot resist the temptation of finding what is hidden: texts hidden beneath trap doors or on trays, plates to be turned over, etc. Their curiosity is aroused by a short and clearly visible question on a trap door, which they lift to see what is underneath. Questions always stimulate children's curiosity. This is doubly useful in a scientific exhibit: it leads them into a discovery mode; and their curiosity serves as the first step in any scientific process.

Recognizing these practices, especially with respect to screen ergonomics, also exerts an impact on multimedia creators. It is not easy therefore to present words or icons that correspond to hyperlinks or to create menu displays easily understood by all users.

5. Testing prototypes to determine obstacles to understanding

Unlike adults, children will spontaneously approach and touch objects; they immediately enter an active phase without reading instructions or asking for explanations. It is thus essential for the designer to define and then adapt to children's reference practices in order to create hands-on exhibits with implicit instructions and use conditions (ergonomics, interfaces, piloting, rules of operation). The visitor-exhibit interfacing principles are being challenged herein. Not only through observing children's behavior at exhibits can we discover these principles, but also through prototypes and model tests of exhibits or multimedia products.

In the "seeing inside your body" exhibit, the inside of the body is a computer image. Choosing the type of image was not a simple task. None of the processes normally used in medical imagery are clearly understandable to the lay public. Only a few lung, stomach or intestinal X-ray photographs are actually recognizable, particularly if they are computer-colored. However, none of them enable visualizing the relations between bodily functions, e.g. breathing and circulation, nutrition and circulation. It was thus necessary to use moving pictures. Tests with children involving computer animation have showed that representing the course of the air in blue was simply impossible, because children would liken it to liquid and not to air. On the other hand, it also proved that a three-dimensional image would be more realistic and comprehensible. For this reason, we decided to use a computer image.

A software package was designed and based on children's suggestions for maintaining an ecosystem in balance. A pretest conducted with 100 Parisian children aged 7 to 9 showed that the importance of food interaction among animals in an ecosystem was not at all understood. The children exhibited an idyllic anthropomorphic conception of animals in nature and believed that "they must not eat one another or, at least, we must not let them eat one another". Testing the software package synopsis with ten children allowed gleaning their suggestions with respect to an initial given situation: a balanced ecosystem containing wolves, elks and the forest, where local inhabitants want to kill the wolves for causing damage to the area. We then noted their suggestions, including: "kill the wolves", "do nothing" or, quite frequently, "feed the wolves". The idea of feeding the wolves is obviously a child's idea, one that could not possibly have been imagined by an adult. This idea turned out to be the one chosen most often by the Parisian children. It raises a significant obstacle to understanding the ecological balance of an environment. When playing this game, more than half the children choose to "feed the wolves". They are then allowed to check their hypotheses and may change their minds through discovering the ecological disaster which would arise in following their instincts. In this case, the forest would be destroyed due to an increasing elk population. Thus, a prototype test allows anticipating visitor or user reactions: it helps avoid errors in the production of popularized media.

6. Know-how based on a presentation of knowledge

Unlike adults, children will spontaneously approach and touch objects; they immediately enter an active phase without reading instructions or asking for explanations. It is thus essential for the designer to define and then adapt to children's reference practices in order to create hands-on exhibits with implicit instructions and use conditions (ergonomics, interfaces, piloting, rules of operation).

Designer know-how depends on comprehending visitors' reference practices and the strategies used to appropriate knowledge, and then on becoming acquainted with the surroundings. This know-how is based on a presentation of knowledge, whereby each detail has a special meaning, as we have already discovered for exhibits.

Designers not only decide on the message to be conveyed in an exhibition; they must also find a way of presenting their chosen means of communication: the scenography of the exhibition, object design, and the "sub-significant" graphic messages. These are the components visitors will perceive first, in light of the reference practices guiding their integration of new discoveries. Designers must therefore create situations that will help visitors make sense of the message. The idea herein is to encourage visitors to relate to the exhibit through a series of criteria instilling meaning to the exhibition.

Foreknowledge of visitor ideas can enable defining the obstacles exhibit users will have to overcome. We designed an exhibit on arm muscles in which children must find where to attach the biceps to make the elbow bend, again through trial and error. The exhibit was designed because results of a survey indicated children had no operational conception for understanding the role of muscles in the movement of limbs: 95% believe a muscle is attached to a single bone (and not to both sides of the articulation), which of course would make it non-functional. The results of this hands-on exhibit shows that more than half the children start by attaching the muscle incorrectly; they then spontaneously change the point of attachment during a second test, which proves to be conclusive. The hands-on exhibit therefore encourages an analysis of the muscle-articulation system as well as concentrating on how the system works. A follow-up test demonstrated that almost all the children playing with this hands-on exhibit had assimilated the principle and the role of the muscle in arm motion.

A knowledge representation system lends the possibility of inventing such exhibits. Through either their emotional impact or their interactive strategies, exhibits can lead youngsters into situations that help them re-evaluate their conceptions and, in particular, overcome some of their cognitive obstacles. This may be accomplished provided exhibit designers have a good understanding of such obstacles.

7. Creating conditions for an educational impact

Research has shown the importance of conditions for stimulating curiosity, envy, emotion, playfulness, inquisitiveness and interaction (both with and between users), so as to nurture the pleasure of discovering biology.⁷

Visitors must be both psychologically and emotionally receptive to memorizing actual situations. Some studies have revealed that exhibits may exert an emotional impact upon children. Depending on the strategies implemented, children can be led to questioning their conceptions and, in particular, to breaking down certain cognitive obstacles. Success is obvious with exhibits like "race your skeleton": the emotion of discovering a skeleton in the image of one's body, combined with the pleasure of pedalling on a bicycle, helps children recall how the skeleton works and its functional structure. This finding has been shown by educational surveys conducted at the "Children's City" exhibition site.⁸

Conditions for focusing the impact of scientific popularization media products therefore entail not only research on support features and obstacles, but also an understanding of the knowledge representation system of future multimedia users or exhibit visitors.

 

FOOTNOTES

² André GIORDAN, Jack GUICHARD, Françoise GUICHARD, Des idées pour apprendre, 1996, Paris, Delagrave, 2000.
³ André GIORDAN, Gérard DE VECCHI, Comment faire pour que ça marche, 1987, Paris, Delagrave, 2000.
⁴ André GIORDAN, Jack GUICHARD, Interagir avec l'intérieur du corps, in la lettre de l'OCIM, n°67, Dijon, 2000, pp. 3-8.
⁵ Sylvie GIRARDET, CLAIRE MERLEAU-PONTI, Portes ouvertes : les enfants, Accueillir les enfants dans un musée ou une exposition, collection Expo mode d'emploi, OCIM, Dijon, 1994.
⁶ Jack GUICHARD, Scientific and Technical Museology for Children, in B Schiele, E. Koster, Science Centers for This Century, Editions Multimondes, Saintes Foy, Quebec, 2000, pp. 253-308.
⁷ Jack GUICHARD, Scientific and Technical Museology for Children, in B Schiele, E. Koster, Science Centers for This Century, Editions Multimondes, Saintes Foy, Quebec, 2000, pp. 253-308
⁸ Jack GUICHARD, Designing tools to develop the conception of learners, in International Journal of Science Education, vol. 17, n°2, 1995, pp. 243-353.