Abstract
While exhibitions in science centers and museums are tacitly believed to represent science (scientific theories, methods, and explanations of natural phenomena), there are few studies examining their scientific authenticity from contemporary sciences’ viewpoints, because it seems to be self-evident to professionals of such institutions that their exhibitions do represent relevant sciences. However, since there exist various kinds of constraints (derived from the institution’s mission, exhibition concepts, finance, space, human resources, etc.) affecting exhibition design and development processes, finished exhibitions do not necessarily represent the intended or planned sciences with authenticity. This exploratory study attempts to propose a new concept, ‘scientific systematicity’ showing how and to what extent a group of (or a set of) science exhibitions reflects a kind of ‘systematicity’ of the relevant sciences. The study starts with theoretical deliberations on its definition, necessity and usability for the use of museum staff’s self-evaluation of their science exhibitions (before, during, and after the exhibition development processes), and then proceeds to case studies using the newly developed evaluation tools for life exhibitions. The ideas presented here still remains at the preliminary level, but they seem promising for quality development and/or revision processes of science exhibitions.
