How do we explore natural phenomena around us? What does it take for personal discoveries to happen? Due to the internal and subjective nature of these processes, these questions are almost impossible to answer. However, when visitors explore exhibits, they are often not alone but experiment and observe together. Studying their often intense conversations allows us to get an insight into the (inter)personal processes of discovery and the interactive construction of knowledge.
Over several months a team from the University of Zürich video-recorded visitors exploring exhibits at the Technorama science centre. An open exploration of these dialogues, based on the method of Conversation Analysis, uncovers unexpected situations and provides pointers to optimise exhibits for truly personal discoveries.
More about this session: Get a glimpse into this rich set of data and find out what is going on - and what is going wrong.