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

Abstract

In this paper, the authors focus on theoretical discussions regarding the socio-scientific issues based exhibition, whose importance has become greater for science centers in the past two decades, but has no clear definition. We examine the background of the socio-scientific issues based exhibition, including its scope and qualities, through analyzing previous research from the past two decades to propose a guide to help understand the socio-scientific issues based exhibition. As a result, we found that (1) the discussion of socio-scientific issues in science centers began with a large paradigm shift in the identity of science centers, (2) a socio-scientific issues based exhibition should be designed with a focus on increasing public engagement with science and relevance science centers in society, and (3) it should convey various kinds of information contextually and make visitors share their own opinions with others in an exhibition space. Moreover, we propose three characteristics of a socio-scientific issues based exhibition (critical reflection, contextualized information, and opinion sharing), to provide curators a direction for a socio-scientific issues based exhibition planning.