Dealing with Socio-Scientific Issues in Science Exhibition: a Literature Review

Socioscientific issues in science exhibitions: examining contributions of the informal science education sector

“…Acknowledging that science museum exhibits focusing on SSI represent a more recent feature of the ISE landscape [Yun et al, 2022], the project used purposeful sampling for the selection of units of analysis/exhibit. This strategy allowed for a focus on promising and useful case studies that could advance understanding of the phenomena of interest.…”

“…Within the ISE sector, science museums have started to engage with complex SSI [Pedretti, 2002[Pedretti, , 2004 and foster active involvement and participation around them [Pedretti & Navas Iannini, 2020;Kunz Kollmann et al, 2013;Eikeland & Frøyland, 2020;Lundgren et al, 2019;Yun, Shi & Jun, 2022]. In this regard, Kunz Kollmann et al [2013] relate SSI exhibitions with Kolstø et al's [2006] SSI argumentation framework, due to its alleged suitability for ISE.…”

“…This framework involves three core elements that speak about opinions (claims), scientific evidence (data), and personal worldviews, perspectives, and values (warrants). In a different context, Yun et al [2022], suggest three characteristics of SSI exhibitions: critical reflection, contextualized information, and opinion sharing. The first one involves awareness and critical consideration of the exhibits' topics and narratives.…”

Educational Potentialities of Student-Curated Exhibitions on Socioscientific Issues: The Students’ Perspective

“…It results from a focus not only on the understanding of the products and processes of science, a goal of scientific literacy, but also in the complex interactions between science, technology, society, and environment, allowing citizens' engagement in informed decision-making and problem-solving processes regarding SSI (Koster, 2010;Reis et al, 2020). These exhibitions are quite challenging for their curators because they must: (1) question the social, economic, political, and ethical impacts of scientific and technological proposals in visitors' daily lives; (2) raise questions, in-depth discussion, and critical thinking instead of providing correct answers; (3) provide contextualized information (e.g., the opinions of different social stakeholders regarding those issues); (4) invite visitors to actively develop their own critical perspectives and to share them with others; and (5) challenge visitors for collective problem-solving action on those issues (Cameron, 2012;Pedretti, 2004;Yun et al, 2020).…”

“…Difficulties experienced by students during the exhibition development process (and mentioned in the case studies) can be organized in 10 categories (Table 13.5). Many of these difficulties are frequently associated with the development of exhibitions about SSI (Cameron, 2012;Yun et al, 2020). The organization and/or management of group work in order to develop the exhibitions represented the biggest challenge for students.…”