Dark Skies, Kielder

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 26 August 2015. Posted in Environment, Exhibitions, Interactivity, Interpretation, Outdoors, Portfolio, Science Engagement.

Earlier this year, I worked with Abound Design who were commissioned by Kielder Water & Forest Park Development Trust, on behalf of the Animating Dark Skies Project Partnership, to produce indoor interpretation at their Kielder Castle and Tower Knowe Visitor Centre sites about the area’s ‘Dark Sky’ status and what that means, and to encourage visitors to the area to look at the night skies.

My role on the project involved researching astronomy content and producing exhibition text and related hands-on activities.

Light pollution was a key concept to communicate and the lack of light pollution can be a very powerful experience for city-dwellers visiting Kielder.

Something I was very keen to include in the exhibition was a large-format Planisphere. This is a map of the constellations as they appear at the night sky which rotates to line up the date and time and show would-be stargazers what to look out for.

We also included large-scale flip books telling the Myths of some of the best known constellations and showing the images they relate to alongside the actual shapes of the stars in the sky.

In this photo you can see a simple orrery we had built in order to show how and why the moon appears to change shape through the month. And, one of my favourite exhibits, two panels of touchable moon-surface 3d printed from NASA files!

Most people involved in Science Communication know NASA has a great resource of education materials, however until this year I didn’t know about their 3d printing files…. here’s the link if you’re interested – http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models/printable – these files can be printed for free by anyone with a 3d printer. Ours show the near and far sides of the moon and how these differ (the far side is very cratered whereas the nearside is smooth due to lava flows that filled the craters billions of years ago). A texture difference like this is a perfect use for a touchable model.

Kielder Water and Forest Park is a fantastic place to spend time outdoors, to learn about forestry and hydroelectric power generation, as well as ecosystems and nature. Now I’m pleased to say it’s also a great place to find out about stargazing.

Kielder Castle Visitor Centre

Tower Knowe Visitor Centre

Planisphere and constellation stories

Orrery and 3d printed moon surface

Catrine Community Education & Visitor Interpretation Centre

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 26 February 2015. Posted in Community Engagement, Interpretation, Portfolio.

While most of the projects I get involved in are very frantic with very tight deadlines, some are slow burners. The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre” or CEVIC is one of those slow burners. I first got involved in the project in May 2012 but it had been going already for a number of years by then. In 2012 I was appointed joinly with another consultant as ‘Interpretation Project Manager’. My role is to create the (mainly digital) exhibits while my colleague’s role is to manage a community consultation and content creation programme for those exhibits.

There have been many twists and turns on the way to creating the centre via a community ‘right-to-buy’ application for an existing Manse and Chapel and renovations. Yesterday I finally had the opportunity to see the progress on the building. It’s looking great!

I am so excited about this project because it’s a centre that is really going to be ‘by the community and for the community’. All the content for the interpretation will be developed with community groups and members, from the Audio-Visuals to the panels and digital exhibits, the website and event the GPS-enabled walk-guide App.

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”
The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”
The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”
The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”
The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

I will write more about this project in future blog posts I am sure, but for now a good summary of the entire project and the wider context in Catrine can be found in this article in the Daily Record newspaper.

Royal Observatory Edinburgh visitor centre

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 9 September 2014. Posted in Exhibitions, Interactivity, Interpretation, Portfolio, Science Engagement.

Summer in Scotland isn’t a great time for getting a good view of the night sky… with less than seven hours of darkness, and much of that twilight. In the summer of 2014, I worked with the Royal Observatory Edinburgh Visitor Centre in the slightly quieter time over the school summer holidays to refurbish and rebuild some of their interactive exhibits.

I had worked with Tania Johnston, Senior Public Engagement Officer at the Observatory the previous year to create couple of new exhibits in their learning space.

A model of the James Clark Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, home to the SCUBA camera developed and built at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.

And the nose-cone from a Skylark Rocket. Skylark rockets flew from the 1950s up to 2005 and carried experiments into space, some of which were designed at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.

Plinths and graphic panels built/printed by Leach Colour.

This year, Tania was keen to revamp the interactive exhibits in the telescope dome. These exhibits had been in place for around 20 years (maybe longer!) and were the surviving three that remained popular with both staff and visitors from a slightly larger selection installed in the 1990s.

The challenge was to re-design and re-build them to keep all the aspects that had worked so well for so long, but to refresh the text and graphics and give them a more modern finish.

Relatively local company FifeX took care of the exhibit build while graphic design was by Chris Peters who designed the graphics for last years’ exhibits. The Observatory staff are very pleased with the outcome, hopefully the first school group to use them this week will agree.

Observatory interactives roe light wide

Reflection and refraction
Observatory interactives roe spectros graphic

Spectrum exhibit
Observatory interactives roe prism close

Bending light
Observatory interactives roe prism wide

Prism exhibit
Observatory interactives roe spectros glowing

Nitrogen spectrum
The telescope

Organisational values in Interpretation

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 2 December 2013. Posted in Engagement, Environment, Interpretation, Outdoors, Portfolio, Science Engagement.

Common Cause and values-based communication

I first became aware of a values-based approach to communication and the ‘Common Cause’ work through the network that is now Learning for Sustainability Scotland. This approach really resonated with me as I followed National level political discussions about the value of culture and heritage in both Westminster and Holyrood.

These discussions reflect similar ones in the field of sustainable development around ‘ecosystem services’ – we have all seen the headlines – “Culture is worth £x-million to the Scottish/UK economy” or “ecosystems services are work £x-million”. I have myself produced reports and applications that state a business case for a project in financial terms, but it has always made me feel a little bit awkward.

I have always had a gut feeling that reducing culture or the environment to economics in some way takes away from the most fundamental reasons why we should be valuing these things in their own right. Finally, in Common Cause, I encountered a theoretical framework to describe exactly why I felt that the economic argument, rather than helping the case, can be hindering it.

“Common Cause” is an approach that looks at how humans use values to guide our behaviour, how values are influenced by communications and society and how working with a values‐based approach can assist organisations with their communication and interpretation. Research has shown that the values that people hold are remarkably consistent across cultures and societies. Research also shows that these values can be classified into ‘Intrinsic’ and ‘Extrinsic’ values. “Intrinsic” values are inherently rewarding to pursue and are strongly associated with behaviours that benefit the environment and society, while “extrinsic” values are centred on external approval or reward and tend to make people more self‐interested.

http://valuesandframes.org/

Universal Values categorised (top right = intrinsic / bottom left = extrinsic)

Experiments have found that values can be temporarily ‘engaged’, making people more likely to act on them and when one value is engaged, we are likely to suppress opposing values, making them appear less important (this is known as the ‘opposition effect’). Therefore, by emphasising how much money a particular behaviour might save an individual, one is actively working against the intrinsic value of appreciating nature for its own sake. Likewise, emphasising how culture makes money through tourism, acts against the intrinsic value of appreciating culture for its own sake and emotional wellbeing through connection with heritage.

What does this mean for site Interpretation?

This approach, arising from the work of psychologists and developed by communications experts at leading charities, has a lot in common with some of the tools and techniques we use in interpretation. When we interpret, we aim to provoke an emotional connection with the visitor and to enable them to make their own meanings from the information and experience we offer them.

Consistent interpretation and communications for any organisation must begin with the organisation’s Mission and Values. From that point we can identify key messages for communication. Values are a ubiquitous presence in advertising, media, politics, and third sector campaigns. For me, knowledge of the work leading to the ‘Common Cause’ handbook about how intrinsic and extrinsic values can work is a valuable addition to the interpreters toolkit. By taking care to avoid the ‘opposition effect’ within our interpretation for any given site we can ensure that we are supporting and reinforcing the values we want to communicate rather than unintentionally undermining them.

One of the clients I put this approach into practice with this year was the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. I was employed by the Garden to work with staff on an Interpretation Strategy and used this opportunity to explore with staff what they felt the Values of the organisation might be and how these might be communicated to visitors. The workshops we held to try to choose key values were lively, stimulating, challenging and enormously good fun. Staff from widely differing backgrounds and professions came together and explored the many facets of the organisation and its role in the 21st Century.

I would urge any organisation or interpreter to read the Common Cause handbook and think about how it might apply to your work.

Glasshouse at RBGE

Exciting Funding News at Kew Gardens

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 17 May 2013. Posted in Breaking News, Environment, Interpretation, Outdoors, Portfolio, Science Engagement.

I am very pleased to share the news that the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) have awarded £14.7million for the restoration of the historic Temperate House at Kew Gardens.

This is particularly exciting news for me as I spent most of last year from early Summer into the Autumn working for Kew on this funding application. In May 2012 I responded to an invitation to tender for the interpretation content research which led to a much larger involvement than expected right through to October 2012.

On appointment I visited the gardens a number of times, speaking to the Community Engagement, Learning, Horticulture, Ethnobotany, Marketing and Digital Media teams. What I discovered at the existing Temperate House was a place and collection with an incredibly exciting potential. It is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world, covering 4,880 square meters and up to 19 metres high. Some investigation revealed that the plants shown there display the richness of the plant kingdom across all the inhabited continents of the world and could be used to tell stories about Kew’s role in global plant conservation, sustainable development and maintaining biodiversity.

Temperate House (from Treetop walkway)

Chilli interpretation panel

In August, based on the success of the content research contract, my role was extended to include delivery of an Interpretation Strategy including visual representations of the potential interpretation.

The main challenge for the Interpretation was the vast range of plants and the fact they come from such different parts of the world. Also the word ‘temperate’ does not really excite most visitors. Confusingly, it has slightly differing definitions in horticulture and world geography and is more often a zone defined by what it is not (polar or tropical) than what it is.

Although individual plant stories were already well told in the glasshouse, the key themes behind the selection and display of the plants and the organisation of their layout was not clear to visitors. In addition, Kew has ambitions through this project to really push forward their interpretation and community engagement and broaden their existing audience.

Plants in the Temperate House illustrate well the important role that plants play in people’s lives all over the world and stories of exploration and travel from the earliest plant hunters to modern-day field-work and conservation projects. Working with the community engagement staff, we analysed the current Kew audience and target under-represented audiences to see how the information we have about those groups might help us structure the Temperate House to enable engagement with a broad cross-section of visitors and future visitors.

This work, along with the Kew brand guidelines and working with the newly identified plant stories enabled us to identify three key themes for the plant stories as well as a layout which complemented the horticultural needs of the displays and an aesthetic with broad appeal.

Tea interpretation panel for children

Design team Bright3d successfully pitched to create the visuals for this aesthetic and interpretation plan. They refined our ideas and visualised them in some fantastic sketches that show the potential visitor experience and how the interpretation could work sympathetically with both the plant collection and the historic building.

As acknowledged by HLF the project:

“…will not only enable vital conservation of the Grade I listed heritage building, the largest Victorian glasshouse in the world, but will result in a more inspiring public display for visitors and help broaden awareness of the importance of plants through learning and engagement programmes with community groups”.

I am very pleased that the HLF have recognised the huge potential of the Temperate House project, and I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Kew team on their hard work and wish them all the best for the next phase of fundraising and delivery, and thank Bright3d for their work with us.

Richard Deverell, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, says:

“This project represents a real step change in the way in which Kew will communicate and bring to life why plants matter, why saving them matters and ultimately why Kew’s science and horticultural expertise matters.”

“We want to use the Temperate House to open up visitors’ minds and imaginations to look at plants and Kew in a new light.”

More info:
http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/KewTemperateHouse.aspx
http://www.kew.org/support-kew/donate-now/temperate-house-appeal/

Energy Lab

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 25 September 2012. Posted in Breaking News, Exhibitions, Interactivity, Interpretation, Museums, Portfolio, Schools, Science Engagement.

I am very excited to announce that the Energy Lab at the National Mining Museum Scotland is almost ready to launch!

You can read about the origins of the project in this blog post. Since I wrote that in May, we have been very busy working with our designers and fabricators; Leach Colour to create the exhibits for the space.

Roger Meachem of Yet Science CIC has worked hard with the museum staff on a supporting teachers’ resource full of pre- and post-visit activities about energy and engineering challenges. And Ryan Sturrock of Walk the Line Productions has filmed presenter Emily Carr demonstrating some of these activities for the supporting dvd and YouTube clips.

The Energy Lab

Introduction

We have collected objects, photographs and film footage donated kindly by Professor Stephen Salter, the University of Edinburgh, Jamie Taylor, Artemis Intelligent Power and Pelamis Wave Power.

And we have welcomed teachers and p6/7 pupils from three local schools to try out the activities, interactives and teachers’ pack.

Generating Electricity and Energy Changes exhibits

Wave Energy interactive

Salter’s Duck display

All that’s left to do is a little bit of final snagging before we welcome Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Government Minister for Culture and External Affairs to open the space formally on 1st October. Then we’ll get our teachers’ pack and film clips live on the museum website and compile our post-project evaluation report for our funders, the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Let’s hope that the Energy Lab can help inspire some of the children of the coal-mining areas of Midlothian to turn their creative problem-solving energy towards engineering a sustainable energy future for us all!

National Mining Museum Scotland, Newtongrange

Engineering Scotland’s energy future

Written by Lyndsey Clark on 10 May 2012. Posted in Exhibitions, Interactivity, Interpretation, Museums, Portfolio, Schools, Science Engagement.

What do you get if you mix some of Scotland’s pioneers in the field of renewable energy with teachers passionate about primary school learning at a mining museum in one of the finest surviving examples of a Victorian colliery?

The answer is – Engineering Scotland’s energy future – a project funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Ingenious grant scheme to create a new and unique space at the National Mining Museum Scotland dedicated to engaging primary school children with innovative engineering solutions for Scotland’s energy future.

The Museum has acquired the ‘temporary’ hut where wave energy research began at Edinburgh University and a number of related artefacts.

National Mining Museum Scotland, Newtongrange

Wave power hut before refurbishment

We are going to be working hard this summer to turn the workshop space into a hive of active hands-on learning for primary 7 pupils, who will be inspired by a display of wave power artefacts and related interactive exhibits to engage in engineering activities that will develop creative thinking, problem solving and team working skills all in the context of Scotland’s energy future.

The project is being shaped and developed in a truly collaborative way with engineers who worked in the wave power unit coming together with museum professionals, working teachers and active learning specialists. Last week’s focus group session worked on developing the full brief for the space in order to help our design and fabrication team, Leach Colour, to start their work and we’re very excited about the potential impact this space could have.

Dark Skies, Kielder

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Catrine Community Education & Visitor Interpretation Centre

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

The Catrine “Community Education and Visitor Interpretation Centre”

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Royal Observatory Edinburgh visitor centre

Observatory interactives roe light wide

Observatory interactives roe spectros graphic

Observatory interactives roe prism close

Observatory interactives roe prism wide

Observatory interactives roe spectros glowing

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Organisational values in Interpretation

Common Cause and values-based communication

What does this mean for site Interpretation?

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Exciting Funding News at Kew Gardens

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Energy Lab

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Engineering Scotland’s energy future

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