Roll up! Roll up! No one can resist the lure of... the BATTERY SHREDDER! All credit to my colleagues on the CDT in energy storage, they designed a mighty fine interactive battery recycling demo. A few weekends ago I had the great pleasure of accompanying them to the Power Playground at Manchester Science Festival. Our colleagues from Sheffield came too, with their Keep the Lights On board game. As for the Southampton lot, we went through a simplified version of a battery recycling process with hundreds of children (and a handful of adults too):
The build-your-own battery competition was an absolute storm - we didn't even need to offer prizes, the thrill of piling up copper coins, vinegar-soaked paper, and aluminium foil and trying to get a higher voltage than their mates seemed to be enough excitement already! Something I found fabulous was the way the whole world seemed to converge at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry that weekend. There were families from Poland to Pakistan; a burqa-clad mother with the most fantastic Northern accent; a Dutch father-daughter pair on holiday; international students from the local university; a school group from Ireland whose teacher didn't know the Festival was on (hopefully she managed to herd them all back together in the end...). Noticeably absent, though, were any black children. Considering 8.6% of the population of Manchester is black, it seems a shame we didn't get to share some science - the proud heritage of all humankind - with any member of a significant group of humans. (And here I must apologise in advance for any cultural insensitivity on my part - I still have a lot to learn.) So are there simply not many black people living near Manchester Museum of Science and Industry? Andrew Whitby has taken data from the 2011 census and made it into a beautiful map, part of which I've overlaid with a map of the relevant bits of Manchester, below: So it looks like while there are many white and Asian folks living within the ring road around the Museum, the nearest black population centre is around Hulme, 20-30 minutes' walk away, and more further away towards Platt Fields Park. A bit of searching on google maps shows up the best driving and public transport routes - a journey of around 10 minutes by the former, or £6 per adult+child by the latter, according to the stagecoach bus website. And remember, Manchester has one of the lowest rates of car ownership in the country, at 0.27 cars per head. Whether a trip to the Museum is worth it is a decidedly subjective question. At this point I took a step back to look at the bigger picture. It's not just this one event at one museum - throughout the UK, black people are less likely to visit museums and galleries than white or Asian people. And it's an issue that has already stimulated some thought on why and what can be done about it. The thinking seems to center on whom museums cater for, and who is making those decisions. I thought at first, this is more relevant to museums of art and history than science - but then, this quote from the Tronvig Group's blog is pretty striking: "a woman explained to me that she would rather take her son to the local park, with its limited educational value, than risk the trip to a major cultural institution where she was fearful that her son might misbehave, and in doing so, not only embarrass her, but inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes about her race." Don't get me started on the (white) kid whose parents didn't think it might be a bad idea for him to stick his bare hands in filthy battery scrap! What's more, there's no escaping some bias, much as I'd love to believe that science and technology are neutral and universal. Isn't Manchester terribly proud of its historic textiles industry? And didn't some of the cotton for that come from American slave labour? Or am I over-thinking things!? Anyway, wouldn't you have to set foot in a museum first, before you're confronted with that? So are the logistics of visiting a museum a determining factor after all? Before I descended into a spiral of unanswerable questions, I was fortunate enough to receive input from some friends of African descent: "I tend to visit museums as a way of discovering a new place." "I’ve visited museums quite a few times... Usually on dates or with girlfriends as a day activity." "If I do have kids in the future, I would most certainly take them to visit museums especially if I go on holiday with them. By doing so I hope to instil in them that curiosity and desire to learn something that they wouldn't otherwise be taught in school or by myself" "I would def encourage my children to embrace art and visit museums often, especially in the west where it’s appreciated and part of the culture, it helps with integration and cultural adoption." Now, a few quotes does not a rigorous scientific survey make. But visiting museums on holidays and special occasions does suggest that the demographics immediately surrounding Manchester Museum of Science and Industry aren't the only explanation. I'm also not yet convinced that the smaller number of black museum visitors compared to other ethnicities is easily fixed by hiring more black curators or being more sensitive in the displays. (Do that, by all means, because those are good things in and of themselves! They just weren't flagged as issues by my very small survey sample, who have had very positive museum experiences.) The suggestion is that museum-going is still seen as a Western rather than an African thing. Will the stats change over time, with sustained effort from museums themselves and schools organising museum trips? Well, I must confess I'm at a loss for a tidy way to conclude this. I went along to help at a public engagement event, and the learning continues. With thanks to Beyang Arrey and Jimi Abbabiyi for some very helpful discussions, and Jules Bristow for getting me thinking in the first place. Any remaining issues are my responsibility alone!
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15/4/2024 04:32:44 pm
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Susan's BlogIn which I scribble words about energy, the environment, climate change, and other science things. Views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of the CDT staff or sponsors. Archives
August 2019
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