Montréal Science Centre

I have to say that after my experiences through Ontario and the rest of the world the Montréal Science Centre (www.montrealsciencecentre.com) came as a big disappointment. Whilst I said on this blog that I didn’t want to be negative about the centres I visited, I do feel obliged to add balance and say where good science communication principles are not well applied.

Montreal Science Centre

To begin with, the box office lady was friendly and welcoming once I started a conversation with her about yesterday’s Museums Day. As anticipated, the place was packed out, and it was a good day not to visit. I got my wristband and set off down the corridors to find the exhibition halls. The Montréal Science Centre is based in a long, thin building along one of the quays of the Old Port. As such, there is a lot of wasted potential as visitors travel and the signage isn’t particularly good. Some walls have exhibitions on, such as Cargo about shipping in large ports, or details of particularly inventive Quebecans, but I do get the feeling that a lot more could be done.

Here, like the Ontario Science Centre, there is some redemption. In some of the bathrooms there is more about the science of handwashing and facts about leaky toilets, so science is being communicated in these areas too, but I would think that this could be extended to the rest of the building.

It is sometimes seen that technology is the way forward for science communication, and many centres and museums do go overboard in thinking that it has to be on the screen for it to be relevant. Whilst in many instances technology can make a huge difference to the communication of science, misplaced technology can work against the visitor.

The Imagine gallery is a bold attempt to bring in screens, projectors and Minority Report-style interfaces to look into the future of science. Unfortunately this is where things fall down; the user is left waving their hands or trying to drag their feet across the floor to activate a certain display and the sensors seem slow to pick up, or get misplaced signals from somewhere else. There is also very little interactivity – the user is required simply to start things off, and the videos and animations run themselves to the end. There are also very few words, which annoyed me.

One area that showed an excellent use of technology was the idTV station, where people sitting in groups of up to 5 can design a science TV report, bring in all the expert opinions, vox pops and even record their own introductions and conclusions. It was a shame that the acting of the news journalist wasn’t very good at all, but that’s that. This is a fascinating bit of kit in an area that looks like Mission Control, and was truly well done. Sadly there were only a couple of the Interactive Movie games in English and I missed the ones I could visit, so I can’t comment on that, and Mission Gaia was in French and had a large group in as well.

Sex: The Tell-All exhibition was very good indeed, and has been developed by the Montréal Science Centre. It was very refreshing to see sex and sexuality treated with understanding and openness with various stations answering many different questions. Homosexuality for instance, even in the animal kingdom, was handled calmly and with perfect grace, treating it as something perfectly natural, including video interviews with various people from the community.

The main area it seemed for interactive exhibits was Science 26, a gallery full of what were essentially circus stalls for science. It felt bitty, not linked together in a meaningful way and a few of the interactives were not working; some just didn’t want to play by the rules – for example the skateboarding balance machine was impossible to reset and I found myself getting more and more frustrated with how it wouldn’t respond to anything.

It is here that I must mention the one thing I have talked such a lot about in the past about science centres – the staff. So far it has always been the staff that have made the experience, and here was no different. As far as I could tell, the staff were there to guard the entrances to the galleries and were pretty much bored, disinterested and chatting to each other. The vibe they gave off was not one of excitement and engagement, nor one of approachability.

The last thing I would say is that if you have a customer satisfaction policy, as written on the welcome sheet, why should your box office staff be startled and ultimately indifferent when asked for a complaints sheet? This made me wonder; in the centres in Ontario I visited there are customer comment forms and computer screens everywhere, and I couldn’t find a bad thing to say. Here however it was impossible to find such a thing and I wondered if there was a correlation. In any case, I was very disappointed indeed by the Montréal Science Centre and would quite like my money back. Sadly however I doubt I will get that wish fulfilled, based on what I experienced there.

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