Sustainable Development Goals in Science Museums

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By Elis Monroy
MIDE, Museo Interactivo de Economía

MIDEWhat’s the use of science museums? Surely there are hundreds of answers to this question, but if we investigate as children do, asking one “Why?” after another, it’s certain that sooner or later, the welfare of the people will be mentioned. And it is not surprising, since this has been one of the arguments by which science itself has earned the trust and financing to become the great “company” we know today.

Currently, there are hundreds of science museums of all sizes and themes, scattered all around the world. They respond to the growing evidence about the importance of creating spaces where people can meet and interact with scientific principles and mechanisms that explain some of the most important factors in our lives, such as health, communication, and food security, among many others. Gladly, we have seen that the appearance of these museums responds to the need of having the opportunity to develop tools to make responsible decisions at a personal and collective level, and this is where the importance of acting together manifests.

In the Interactive Museum of Economics (MIDE), the first in the world to specialize in the communication of this science, we realized that communicating the most basic principles of the economy without incorporating their relationship to society and the environment represented a weakness in our speech. Therefore, in 2011 we opened our room Sustainable Development: Economy, Society and Nature in which we show how our decisions regarding consumption and production of goods and services directly impact the well-being of the planet and society, as well as the many alternatives we have to rethink the role we play in these processes.

It is from this learning that we are convinced that science museums must help address a sustainable approach to communicating a more comprehensive and inclusive vision of the world we inhabit. Adopting this approach opens the possibility of glimpsing the challenges we face as a global community, of thinking about relevant solutions to the environmental problems we are experiencing, and of engaging with the decisions and actions required to build a more just and equitable world.

Last year, 175 United Nations member countries decided to join efforts again to address the most pressing needs of humanity, and created 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals resemble the Millennium Development Goals, drafted in 2000, but also incorporate new challenges which address the quality of life of the population, the welfare of many ecosystems around the world, and the continuity of economic processes.

There are many ways of interpreting the rethinking of the goals, but certainly the most important concerns a second attempt to correct the course of our goals and decisions, encouraging more and more sectors of society to commit to joining efforts to achieve significant changes in the next 15 years.

The need to address the 17 SDGs from all possible trenches caused them to be written in such a way that they are easily communicable and inclusive. They relate to familiar issues such as food security, clean water, and the welfare of the oceans, issues in which science is clearly invested and about which awareness is critical.

Achieving these SDGs requires the joint effort of all sectors comprising society and, of course, centers and science museums. While each museum has a particular subject or approach, the transformational capacity by leveraging this diversity in a joint strategy represents an unprecedented potential, such as the one needed to give the necessary push to the SDGs.

Those who inhabit the world are in a moment similar to the one in which an athlete finds him or herself before a competition to determine who gets the gold medal in his or her last Olympics. They take their position, then align their mind, breath, and every one of their muscles to achieve the challenging target in front of them. Just like that, today we have to align our efforts to achieve a goal, rather, to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, to ensure not a gold medal, but a dignified survival in our planet.

Objetivos de desarrollo sostenible en los museos de ciencia

Por Elis Monroy García
MIDE, Museo Interactivo de Economía

MIDE¿Para qué sirven los museos de ciencias? Seguramente existen cientos de respuestas a esta pregunta; pero si investigáramos como lo hacen las niñas y los niños, preguntando un por qué tras otro, es seguro que en algún momento se mencionaría el bienestar de las personas. No debería sorprendernos, ya que éste ha sido uno de los argumentos por los cuales la ciencia misma ha merecido la confianza y el financiamiento para llegar a ser la enorme empresa que hoy conocemos.

Actualmente, existen cientos de museos de ciencia, de todos tamaños y temas, esparcidos por el mundo entero. Y es que cada vez se hace más evidente la importancia de crear espacios en donde la gente se pueda acercar a conocer e interactuar con los principios y mecanismos científicos que explican algunos de los factores más importantes de nuestras vidas, como la salud, la comunicación y la seguridad alimenticia, entre muchos otros. Con gusto, hemos visto que la aparición de estos museos responde a la necesidad de que las personas cuenten con la oportunidad de conocer herramientas para tomar decisiones responsables a nivel personal y colectivo; y es aquí en donde se manifiesta la importancia de actuar de manera conjunta.

En el Museo Interactivo de Economía (MIDE), el primero del mundo en especializarse en la divulgación de esta ciencia, nos dimos cuenta de que comunicar los principios más elementales de la economía, sin incorporar la relación que guardan con la sociedad y el medio ambiente, representaba una debilidad en nuestro discurso. Por lo tanto, en 2011 inauguramos nuestra sala Desarrollo Sustentable: Economía, Sociedad y Naturaleza, en la que mostramos cómo nuestras decisiones respecto al consumo y producción de bienes y servicios impactan directamente en el bienestar del planeta y de la sociedad, así como las numerosas alternativas que tenemos para replantear el papel que jugamos dentro de estos procesos.

A partir de este aprendizaje estamos convencidos de la importancia de que los museos de ciencia retomen el enfoque de sostenibilidad para comunicar una visión más completa e incluyente del mundo en el que vivimos. Adoptar este enfoque abre la posibilidad de vislumbrar los retos que enfrentamos como comunidad global, de pensar en soluciones pertinentes a los problemas ambientales que estamos viviendo y de comprometernos con las decisiones y acciones que se requieren para construir un mundo más justo y equitativo.

El año pasado, los 175 países integrantes de la ONU ratificaron su decisión de unificar esfuerzos para atender las necesidades más apremiantes de la humanidad, y se plantearon diecisiete Objetivos del Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS). Éstos retoman los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio, redactados en el año 2000, pero también incorporan nuevos retos a los que se enfrentan los países, incluido el nuestro, y que comprometen la calidad de vida de la población, así como el bienestar de diversos ecosistemas alrededor del mundo y la continuidad de los procesos económicos.
Hay muchas formas de interpretar el replanteamiento de estos Objetivos; pero, sin duda, la más importante se refiere a un segundo intento para corregir el rumbo de nuestras metas y decisiones, promoviendo que cada vez más sectores de la sociedad se comprometan a sumar esfuerzos para lograr cambios significativos en los siguientes quince años.

La necesidad de que los diecisiete ODS sean atendidos desde todas las trincheras posibles hizo que fueran redactados de forma sencilla y clara. Se refieren a temas familiares, como las necesidades de atender la seguridad alimenticia, contar con agua limpia, o asegurar el bienestar de los océanos; temas en los que la ciencia está claramente inmiscuida y cuya concientización es fundamental para enfrentarlos.

Lograr estos ODS requiere del esfuerzo en conjunto de todos los sectores de la sociedad y, por supuesto, de los centros y museos de ciencia. Si bien cada museo cuenta con una aproximación o temática particular, la capacidad de transformación al aprovechar esta diversidad en una estrategia conjunta representa un potencial sin precedentes, tal como el que se necesita para dar el empuje necesario a los ODS.

Quienes habitamos el mundo nos encontramos en un momento parecido al de un atleta antes de la competencia que determina quién se lleva la medalla de oro de su última olimpiada. El atleta toma su posición, se prepara y entonces su mente, su respiración y cada uno de sus músculos se alinean ante el desafío que tiene enfrente. Así, hoy necesitamos alinear nuestros esfuerzos para lograr los 17 Objetivos del Desarrollo Sostenible y asegurar no una medalla de oro, sino una supervivencia digna en nuestro único planeta.

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Future Earth (Research for Global Sustainability) supports the ISCSMD

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Owen GaffneyFuture Earth fully supports UNESCO’s and the international network of science centres’ initiative to support the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs mark a paradigm shift in human development. They are the first acknowledgement that global sustainability is now a prerequisite for human welfare and prosperity – and global sustainability is at risk. To succeed, the goals must reach every man, woman and child. The world’s science centres and museums have a critical role to engage the public in the goals. We wish you every success!

—Owen Gaffney
www.futureearth.org/

ISCSMD 2016: A Global Platform for Reflection, Transformation, and Mainstreaming the SDGs in Science Centres and Science Museums

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By Dr. Elizabeth Rasekoala, President, African Gong

During the recent ECSITE Annual Conference in Graz, Austria, I did allude in my keynote presentation that the sector should be wary of falling into the self-congratulation trap of using this landmark global platform of the International Science Center and Science Museum Day (ISCSMD) as simply yet another opportunity to “tell the world how wonderful science centres and science museums are.” I advocated that it should rather utilize this seminal opportunity to engage in a reflective, critical analysis of its field to undertake a listening and engagement exercise, and to take stock of the milestones reached and the many more to be achieved. In short, it should not engage in “business as usual.”

The United Nations’ (UN’s) post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Framework has elucidated the full complexity of the range, breadth, and depth of the global development challenges of the 21st century, much more so than the preceding Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were limited and narrow in their scope and application. This comprehensive SDGs framework thus illustrates that the overwhelming framing of science communication and science and society discourses, practices, and mechanisms has not served societies and communities well. Furthermore, if science communication is to be both salient and credible for a wide range of audiences and meet the needs of the diverse publics, there is a need for new ways of approaching the craft and delivery mechanisms, in order to maximize impact and enhance development gains.

The myriad and intractable development challenges to which science communication should contribute to highlighting and promoting the pivotal role of science, through developing innovations and solutions for solving challenges in society, are profound, and nowhere more so than on the African continent. However, the ubiquitous look, design, content, layouts, exhibits, materials, activities, narratives, etc. of science centres and science museums across the globe is a cause for concern and raises profound questions about the lack of creativity and innovation in the field itself. When science centres and museums in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and across the global south, look and feel exactly the same as those in the global north, then we have a real problem of the lack of diversity, socio-cultural inclusion, language diversity, localized contexts, and indigenous knowledge. Without these attributes, it is not possible to truly engage the interests, participation, and sense of ownership of communities and societies in the global south, in science centres and science museums.

In African Gong, we are working in partnership with a range of stakeholders to achieve strategic developments in science communication on the African continent on these key challenging platforms:

  • Policy Development: Few African governments have Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policies in place, and of those that do, hardly any have Science Communication as a key pillar or strand in their STI policies. This has challenging implications as to how we grow the science centre and science museum sector on the African continent;
  • Practice and Program Development: How do we develop innovative, empowering, and transformative African-centric science centres and science museums, in place of the Euro-centric ones which currently dominate and which simply further alienate African citizens, who largely see it as foreign, elitist, and intimidating from science?
  • Capacity Development: How do we grow the human capital needed for the delivery of engaging, stimulating, and sustainable science centres and science museums on the African continent?

Above all else, we wish to realize science centres and science museums which facilitate and enable the strategic positioning of science and its applications at the heart of the African sustainable development framework, hence the pivotal focus on the SDGs in this regard.

We very much welcome the focus on the SDGs for the ISCSMD and I would like to suggest the following kinds of activities to science centres and science museums, in line with this focus:

The SDG Goal 2, which aims to end hunger, is at least as concerned with politics and economics as it is with climate change and farm yields. I would like to suggest that instead of the usual narrow focus on the science of genetically-modified foods and the polarized debates which it generates, that on November 10, some science centers could actually engage in a multidisciplinary and co-generated activity involving natural and social scientists, economists, and philosophers to explore the complex nature of the inter-linkages between topics like agricultural subsidies, trade tariffs, climate change impacts, small-holder farmers versus large commercial farms, land tenure/ownership, farm yields and soil quality, post-harvest loss, food prices, food waste, agro-processing and the agricultural value chain, and how all these interlinked issues critically impact on the delivery of Goal 2. This would make for a very multi-stakeholder, multi-level, inclusive, and engaging activity!

Another suggestion would be to take on Goal 5, which is focused on gender equality. The suggestion here is that you plan over a two-week period prior to November 10, to involve visitors to your science centre/museum in an interactive exercise of gender-auditing your centre/museum: its exhibits, activities, layout, facilities, programs, narratives, etc. with fun tools such as ‘sticky dots’ (red or pink for female bias; blue or purple for male bias; and green for gender-balance). Give equal amounts of the three different color sticker dots to all the visitors coming to your centre for a period of two weeks (and also undertake daily gender monitoring of these visitors). Then, have them place these dots based on their assessments as to gender bias or otherwise, on wall mounted boards across the centre (different boards for different exhibits, activities, etc.). On November 10, share these findings with your visitors and invited gender experts and involve them in discussions, debates, and interactive activities which will enable your centre to address these issues more effectively, sustainably, and inclusively. You will be surprised at the findings and also at the excellent and creative ideas that you will get from your visitors!

I wish us all an uplifting, dynamic, and insightful ISCSMD 2016 on November 10, and hope that it will engender the sustainable transformation of the sector and field.