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| "They're all triplets." |
Their exploration began with one
girl asking the other, “Do you want to build a house?” They then swept all the
cubes to one side and started building a house for their three stuffed animals,
a giraffe, a puppy, and a bear. As they built, they talked about what they were
building, and who their animals were. “They’re all triplets,” one said.
“They’re watching TV,” added the other. “Where should we put him?” the older
girl asked holding up the giraffe. “Let me deal with that!” the younger one
replied, grabbing the animal from her. The activity continued, sometimes with
more building and problem solving and some times with more conversation and
wondering, “How do we make a window for the giraffe?”
Similar activity sequences occur
frequently in children’s museums, science centers and museums and probably in
every type of museum. Content specialists, advisors, exhibit developers and
designers may find this disappointing and feel exhibits are being misused. And for good reason. They
have created exhibit experiences to carry particular exhibit messages and concepts and have selected
materials, media, and objects to support visitors in making these discoveries. As
the activity above suggests, it may not happen, happen right away, or happen in
the way the exhibit team has imagined or intended.
That moment of wondering, “How do we
make a window for the giraffe?” reveals something about what is happening and might happen at an
exhibit. The question involves working with the height and length of the wall; the
relationship between the giraffe’s height and the window opening; spanning the
window opening; and considering alternative scenarios for the house. This is
where the focused exploration exhibit developers hope will occur is most likely
to kick in: when exploration has yielded information about objects and what
they can or can’t do.
Exploration and Play. Play and
Exploration.
Planned for or not, play and
exploration are an active, present, and inevitable part of the museum experience
for children as well as adults. The problem solving, critical thinking, and
planned discovery intended in exhibits require time and
opportunity to explore, interact with, develop a familiarity with, and work
with an understanding of the materials, objects, tools, topic, and even the social
and physical context of the museum.
 |
| "What can this do?" |
We can look to play for some
insights about what often happens at exhibits and, for that matter, in many other
settings. What we think of broadly as children’s play with objects and
materials has two distinct aspects proposed by Corinne Hutt in 1970. In her play taxonomy, also referred to by Rennie and McClafferty (2002), she
identifies epistemic behavior, or exploration,
and ludic behavior, or
self-amusement, along with games with
rules.
In exploration, a child picks up a ball, block, stick, piece of
string, sock, or stone, and begins to investigate it. In eyeing, touching,
lifting, squeezing, shaking, pounding, throwing, banging, dropping, rolling, squeezing,
stepping on, and for the youngest, mouthing and gumming, the child gathers
information about the object’s basic properties. Implicit in the child’s mind
during this investigation appears to be: "What can this object do?"
Hutt also suggests that exploratory–epistemic–behavior
may be further divided into three kinds of activities. In investigation a child uses her senses to gather information. In problem
solving she focuses on finding a solution or doing a puzzle. In productive
activity she is intent on making changes to the material and–or–acquiring
skills.
 |
| "What can I do with this object?" |
Play, or ludic behavior, relies on the child having sufficient information about the object to make it familiar and to be comfortable in shifting to amusement, or ludic behavior. Here the implicit question is, “What can I do with this object?” In this realm, Hutt says, children draw on the knowledge gathered about the object and skills acquired in using it to play symbolically with it. A rope becomes a snake; a stick is light sword; a stone is a magic egg; a sock fits over the hand and is a cat puppet; and a pile of blocks are stacked to be a house with a window for a giraffe. A story unfolds. Pretense is often involved.
Through play–informed by the initial
exploration–a child gathers and consolidates additional information to develop greater
familiarity, knowledge, and understanding about the object, gadget, or material
and to acquire greater skill in using it. This is not a predictable, linear
process, however. In fact, exploratory behaviors can alternate quickly or blend
with play. Occasionally, the accidental discovery of a novel feature discovered
through play can generate new data and prompt a new round of exploration. This,
however, is incidental rather than a learner’s goal for an activity.
 |
| A new feature calls for another round of exploration |
The need to explore
to develop familiarity with something does not disappear with childhood.
Furthermore, it is not limited to toys, loose parts, found objects, or play.
While adults bring more information to each encounter, the material (and even
social) world is not static enough to remain familiar for very long. When a new
gadget or piece of equipment enters our life or we walk up to the rocket
launcher at a science center, we are like children. We take time to investigate
it. We adjust our grip, test how much effort is needed, look and listen for
cues about how this operates, and try different movements before wholeheartedly
committing to its use. In fact, Rennie and McClafferty suggest a paraphrase of
Hutt’s two questions: “What can this exhibit
do?” and “What can I do with this
exhibit?”
Museums, Exhibits and Time
In developing and designing museum
experiences, most of us, most of the time, do so as if exploration, play, and
planned discovery are one and the same for accomplishing our objectives. They are
not. In fact, the distinctions among them are both important and often relevant
to the objectives museums have for learners in an exhibit or program.
When a learner encounters objects, gadgets,
or materials at a maker table, math exhibit, harmonograph, or building
platform, exploration usually begins.
It is likely to be relatively brief if there is some previous experience and
familiarity with what is being explored. With new objects or novel combinations
of materials, however, investigation is likely to be both longer and more necessary
for gathering information. Perhaps then, the learner can start finding
solutions to a problem, make changes to a material, and develop skills.
But other factors are also operating.
Museums are not the highly familiar, everyday environments of the kitchen, car,
grocery store, or coffee shop. They are, in fact, an intentionally constructed
mix of familiar, unfamiliar, and often rare objects, materials, and mechanisms,
presented in engaging, intriguing, and often surprising ways. Because variety, novelty, and
something out of the ordinary typify museums and their exhibits, it’s
reasonable to expect that many visitors will need time to become oriented to, inspect,
get to know, and take in a museum and its exhibits. A certain level of exploration,
or epistemic behavior, is likely for children and adults to become familiar or
reacquainted with an exhibit.
A tendency to play, amuse, or
imagine may also arrive unexpectedly. Three small stuffed animals may show up
at the Scaling Shapes exhibit in the pockets of 2 girls. The face of a clown
may be playfully imagined as the target of the rocket launcher. Adding a silly
spin or a playful punch to the floating ball on the Bernoulli Blower may
produce new effects, launching another round of testing.
At many exhibits, exploration is
likely to focus on what Hutt calls productive
activity that is concerned with changing the material, mechanism, or gadget
or the user’s skill in using them. Changing a material may involve altering it
by tearing, folding, cutting, applying pressure, or dissolving; changing
another material by cutting, pounding, piercing, or illuminating it; or making
something with it by attaching, assembling, connecting, or sewing it.
Combinations of these processes are likely to expand, interrupt, or redirect the
investigation.
Another aspect of productive activity is developing a
skill in using or working with a material, object, or tool, or becoming more
precise in using that skill. Through extended use, multiple tries at one’s own
pace, and increased familiarity, the explorer acquires skills and develops
competence. With time and opportunity, she will engage in behaviors, actions,
and sequences that lead to what exhibit planners (teachers, educators, parents)
hope she and others will learn, for instance, solving specific problems like
doubling the size of an object in three dimensions in the Scaling Shapes
activity.
Lessons and Starting Points
Exploration, play, and productive
behavior contain many of the very elements an exhibit intentionally brings
together in order to meet its specific objectives, offering useful insights and
strategies for planning exhibit experiences for children and adults. While
related to one another, they serve distinct purposes for the learner. Through exploration
that often informs–and is informed by–play, children and adults develop a
familiarity with the materials, objects, tools, topics, and context. As
exploration and play alternate, merge, and combine, they nevertheless provide the
learner with skill in using the materials and a degree of preparation and
confidence that is valuable in pursuing and accomplishing objectives.
Less mindful of an exhibit's
objectives, the explorer-player-learner’s tendency to explore and play follows
his own objectives. This too offers insights and opportunities into additional
ways exhibits might accomplish their objectives by:
- Recognizing the learner as someone inclined to explore, play, and pursue her own objectives;
- Providing for–even welcoming–the mix of exploration (investigation, productive activity and problem solving) and play that is inevitable;
- Channeling, but not forcing, these activities towards the exhibit's objectives;
- Providing for these activities in exhibit design, material selection, layout, and images;
- Incorporating strategies that prolong engagement to provide the time necessary to both explore and play.
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