BD What about the perspective of the education department, how would you
characterise that in terms of its input into the design process?
HW Well there are a lot of people in our education department there
are a lot of different approaches. Most of them at some stage have been involved
in the design and development of exhibits. And - they're - they're usually
very good. If I had a criticism it's that they tend to jump towards the text-book
experiments a little too quickly. But then, you know, text-book experiments
are there because they've been effective for years and years and years. You
know, clichés don't become clichés because they're not memorable. There is
a sifting process going on there already. It's, it's good to have the education
department involved because they're involved in the delivery. They do tend
to steal some of the better ideas and turn them into demos for shows which
irks me slightly. You get half-way to doing a really great exhibit and they
think "Oh we'll put that in the show" and then it's there and once it's in
the show you can never put that extra bit into it that develops it to an exhibit.
Some things get derailed a little. But, the props for the shows are quite
often similar to exhibits, anyway. But I think most of the education team
have at some stage or another been involved in the development of things for
exhibits. I think they've got a good understanding of the process. And that's
something that, you know we're able to offer them. A lot of other science
centres can't offer that involvement.
