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Designing for all

Find this session's presentations here.

Designing for all may sound like an impossible task. As the world increasingly engages in conversations about the importance of diversity and inclusion, it is imperative that we, as important STEM organisations, join the conversation.

Are we being reflective about ourselves as STEM educators? About our institutions as promoters of STEM education and inquiry? Are we creating welcoming spaces for a wide variety of STEM learners? Are we being innovative about how we can expand our accessibility and inclusivity?

Or… are we, implicitly or explicitly, inviting and engaging only certain types of learners in certain types of contexts? And if so, can we broaden the scope of our activities to encompass the diversity of potential STEM learners required in the Europe of the future?

Let's learn from each other so we can adapt and expand our offerings to engage and motivate more of our visitors as well as reach a more diverse group of visitors.

Facilitator

Maarten Okkersen
Development & Experience Design
Museon-Omniversum
Den Haag
Netherlands

Session speakers

Sheena Laursen
Programme Manager - International Relations and Learning
Experimentarium
Hellerup
Denmark
Twitter
After having developed the gender guidelines in the Hypatia project we wanted to try and put them into practice. This is work in progress where we at Experimentarium are setting up a technology lab for school and family visitors and we are doing this together with the teenagers. This means working closely with them to develop ideas and involves listening, challenging each other and setting up a thriving working environment. And most importantly, it involves us inviting a diverse group of teenagers to work with us. Hopefully we will end up with a workshop experience that reaches out to a broader and more diverse group of people.
Dorothée Vatinel
Curator
Universcience
Paris
France
3 different exhibitions made by Heureka, Pavilhao do Conhecimento and la Cité des sciences et de l’industrie were presented in Helsinki, Lisbon and Paris with the same content. How do you make sure that the cultural diversity and the local approach are integrated in the content? How do you share all the different points of view? From the very beginning of the project Dorothée integrated the Finnish and Portuguese approaches in this topic. Did this diversity weaken the exhibition or not?
Toni Dancstep
Senior Researcher
Exploratorium
Share findings from the Exhibit Designs for Girls’ Engagement (EDGE) research project which studied over a 100 exhibit design attributes that had the potential to better engage girls at exhibits. The Exploratorium-run research study explored the engagement of 1000 girls and boys at 300 exhibits from three US institutions and identified nine exhibit design approaches that were highly related to girls’ engagement while still managing to be highly engaging for boys as well.
Christopher Cardiel
Research and Evaluation Supervisor
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry
Will bring his own experience as the lead researcher on Science on the Move, which involved bringing unfacilitated, interactive science exhibits and learning opportunities to public spaces outside museum walls. Science Delivered is a proposed continuation of this project that will develop and research these learning exhibits in public spaces with the goal of deepening the understanding of how such experiences can contribute to sparked and maintained interest in locally-relevant STEM topics.