| Four times every day a banana comes to the | | | | knowledge. There are already over 350 members |
| Liberty Science Center in Jersey City and | | | | of the Association of Science-Technology |
| complains that its side hurts. And when that | | | | Centers, which not only welcome individual visitors |
| happens the kids at the center put on their | | | | but also sponsor programs for school field trips, |
| surgical scrubs, take a scalpel in hand, and start to | | | | after school programs, and teacher training |
| operate. Children are guided through operating | | | | workshops. |
| procedures, and receive explanations of | | | | The Liberty Science Center receives over |
| sterilization, infection, the roles of members of an | | | | 800,000 visitors each year, and offers such |
| operating room team, and in the kind of education | | | | attractions as walking a high steel skyscraper |
| which these jobs require. This kind of hands-on | | | | beam, and practicing real laboratory procedures. In |
| fun is a great way to interest kids in medicine as | | | | the Center's auditorium school groups can watch |
| well as teach them real medical techniques. It is | | | | and talk with surgeons while they perform |
| known as free-choice or informal science | | | | operations using a live video link. Even students |
| education, which means that it occurs outside the | | | | who have themselves performed dissections in |
| school. The National Academies, which is a | | | | biology class are startled to watch a power saw |
| congressionally-chartered, nonprofit organization | | | | cut through a patient's rib cage; or smoke curling |
| which advises the government, has just released | | | | up from a cauterizing scalpel; or urine flow from a |
| a report on free-choice science education in | | | | newly-transplanted kidney. Many students find this |
| informal settings such as aquariums, zoos, and | | | | experience to be life altering, particularly those |
| museums. The report was issued at a time when | | | | who are thinking of a wearing a medical uniform |
| many experts are bemoaning the lack of scientific | | | | as a career. For many students the discussions of |
| literacy and education in America. They point out | | | | why patients need surgery - how they could have |
| that a shortfall of engineers, scientists, and people | | | | prevented it had they taken care in time - can be |
| in doctor coats will cost America its competitive | | | | eye-opening. One advantage of science museums |
| edge globally, and create a workforce which is ill | | | | over regular schools is that the visitors |
| equipped to function in what has become a high | | | | themselves can choose their focus, which helps |
| tech workplace, as well as citizens struggling to | | | | them in learning more, and retaining it longer. |
| understand such public issues as stem cell | | | | Nonetheless, the main value of science museums |
| research. While there have been calls for major | | | | is to spark motivation and interest in science, |
| change in schools, additionally science museums | | | | rather than to teach specific facts. By exposing |
| are playing a leading role in promoting and teaching | | | | themselves to science, by pursuing and learning |
| science to adults as well as children. These kinds | | | | something about it, people can understand the |
| of institutions are instrumental in stimulating | | | | value of science. In turn this helps in the support |
| awareness, interest, understanding, and | | | | of scientific enterprise generally. |