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Originally Posted by lorenavedon
our science center sucks anyway. It's filled with boring junk that's oil and gas related. People want wonder and excitement. Space travel and exploration to far off places. They want to experience something futuristic. This is a science center. Not the junk heap we have now. Calgary dropped the ball big time on something that could have been a defining place for our city.
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Science centres are far too often a type of interactive classroom, whose exhibits are designed specifically to facilitate some learning outcome. Any historical perspective on science or artifact is a curiosity that is seen as good to have but unnecessary. Telus Spark is of this kind and it is terrible. But so is the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which manages to be fairly boring despite having some fairly impressive items in its collection, a huge budget, a long history, and great location. By contrast, the Mütter Museum, which is contained in a much more modest location and on a much more modest budget also in Philadelphia, was one of the most impressive scientific-focused museums I've ever visited.
This issue of course is that "science" is a broad topic, and so museums of natural history, paleontology, archaeology/physical anthropology, geology, and aeronautics, and even zoos and planetariums, are all already museums of science. And so 'science centres' try to cover an entirely too-broad topic, without stepping on the feet of other museums in their region (which are usually the most tangible topics). This leads to museums spread thin, with no clear focus and a needless focus on the current state of technology. Telus Spark also suffers from a terrible governing culture. One of its directors has a professional science background, and that's good, but reading any of their annual reports is depressing. They all make a huge point to mention "Canada's innovation gap", "inspiring new innovators", how many more science degrees China awards than Canada, and the future of Alberta's labour market in the first few pages. I had to attend this Alberta Innovates Technology Futures summit awhile ago, and it was the same thing: every time someone with an MBA tells me about the value of science (which almost invariable includes the phrase "innovation gap"), I die inside just a little bit.