Kids in Surgical Scrubs at Liberty Science Center

Four times every day a banana comes to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City and complains that its side hurts. And when that happens the kids at the center put on their surgical scrubs, take a scalpel in hand, and start to operate. Children are guided through operating procedures, and receive explanations of sterilization, infection, the roles of members of an operating room team, and in the kind of education which these jobs require. This kind of hands-on fun is a great way to interest kids in medicine as well as teach them real medical techniques. It is known as free-choice or informal science education, which means that it occurs outside the school. The National Academies, which is a congressionally-chartered, nonprofit organization which advises the government, has just released a report on free-choice science education in informal settings such as aquariums, zoos, and museums. The report was issued at a time when many experts are bemoaning the lack of scientific literacy and education in America. They point out that a shortfall of engineers, scientists, and people in doctor coats will cost America its competitive edge globally, and create a workforce which is ill equipped to function in what has become a high tech workplace, as well as citizens struggling to understand such public issues as stem cell research. While there have been calls for major change in schools, additionally science museums are playing a leading role in promoting and teaching science to adults as well as children. These kinds of institutions are instrumental in stimulating awareness, interest, understanding, and knowledge. There are already over 350 members of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, which not only welcome individual visitors but also sponsor programs for school field trips, after school programs, and teacher training workshops.

The Liberty Science Center receives over 800,000 visitors each year, and offers such attractions as walking a high steel skyscraper beam, and practicing real laboratory procedures. In the Center's auditorium school groups can watch and talk with surgeons while they perform operations using a live video link. Even students who have themselves performed dissections in biology class are startled to watch a power saw cut through a patient's rib cage; or smoke curling up from a cauterizing scalpel; or urine flow from a newly-transplanted kidney. Many students find this experience to be life altering, particularly those who are thinking of a wearing a medical uniform as a career. For many students the discussions of why patients need surgery - how they could have prevented it had they taken care in time - can be eye-opening. One advantage of science museums over regular schools is that the visitors themselves can choose their focus, which helps them in learning more, and retaining it longer. Nonetheless, the main value of science museums is to spark motivation and interest in science, rather than to teach specific facts. By exposing themselves to science, by pursuing and learning something about it, people can understand the value of science. In turn this helps in the support of scientific enterprise generally.