Article ID: CBB087105087

The Downfall of the Diorama: Science Fair Displays in Contemporary America (2020)

unapi

Abstract Over the course of the twentieth century, millions of American children conducted their first science experiments by participating in science fairs. In tracing the development of a new visual medium of the 20th century – the science fair display – this paper captures the unruliness of scientific representation from a child’s eye view. The essay traces this phenomenon against the backdrop of broader debates regarding the role scientifically inclined youth would play in shaping the nation’s future. Science fairs also raise important philosophical questions regarding the epistemology of children’s experimentation. Over the course of fifty years, three-dimensional dioramas of the Progressive era were supplanted by postwar argument-driven text panels, capturing a distinct rupture in scientific representation. The essay argues that science fair displays provide an entry point for understanding how adolescents conceived of science on visual, material, social, and epistemological terms.

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Authors & Contributors
Bassett, Ross Knox
Bix, Amy
Goldstein, Bernard R.
Hon, Giora
Insley, Jane
Raz, Mical
Journals
Air Power History
Archives of Natural History
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
History and Technology
Publishers
Geological Society of America
Pennsylvania State University
Harvard University Press
MIT Press
Palgrave Macmillan
Pennsylvania State University Press
Concepts
Science and society
Students
Visual representation; visual communication
Science education and teaching
Children and science
Natural history
People
Akeley, Carl Ethan
Carver, George Washington
Vygotskii, Lev Semenovich
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
20th century, late
Places
United States
Brazil
Great Britain
India
Massachusetts (U.S.)
China
Institutions
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Georgia Institute of Technology
Iowa State College, Ames
Science Museum, London
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
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