Maya Halevy: ‘science culture’ binds us together

Exhibit from Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem WIKI COMMONS PHOTO

Maya Halevy, director of the Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem for the past 20 years, has used her background as an architect and town planner together with her museology studies to help develop the science centre into an institution that promotes science culture and education in Israel.

During a recent interview with The CJN in advance of her visit to Montreal for the Association for Science and Technology Centres conference, as well as making time to visit science centres in Ottawa and Toronto, Halevy said that even in spite of the current wave of terror in Israel, she is focused on promoting science culture in the Middle East, “as we believe that with better education and better science and technology, people can see the benefit of co-operation.”

Can you tell me about your museum and its role in Israeli society?

The museum was established in its permanent place in 1992, but it was started as a pilot project in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by Prof. Peter Hillman. He thought the idea of building interactive exhibits in museums would be a good idea.

I joined Peter Hillman in 1983, and we started together to realize what a science centre is in Israel. There are a lot in common in science centres in the approach, but still, you want to have it with local flavour, with local answers to the local needs.

The Jerusalem Foundation was very interested in the idea of building a science museum in Jerusalem, as they saw the potential of bringing science to the citizens of Jerusalem, bringing science to the children of Jerusalem, to the families.

From Day 1, we are really operating under joint auspices of two organizations; Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Foundation.

We see that we are helping young scientists, young researchers, young engineers, students who are working here as guides, or people with science-based careers. What they learn here while they are working as guides is to be better communicators of science. We see both sides.

Why is it important to promote science as part of the culture?

Maya Halevy
Maya Halevy

Our idea is that we would very much like to promote science education, we would very much like to develop a culture of science, because sometimes people don’t look at science as part of their culture, and we believe that it is part of every citizen of the 21st century. We want to advance science among all communities. That is why we are working very hard to engage all communities of Israel, including the Jewish population, the Arab population, the secular and the religious. This is a kind of hub for people to meet around science and technology. We believe that science and technology is our common language, and if we believe that people share the same value when we speak about science and technology and when we speak about educating the future of young kids, we see this as a kind of common ground for working together, for meeting, for engaging.

We did an interesting project for a few years with the European Union, with 10 European countries, that we called “Engineers.” It was about how to promote engineering into science lessons in elementary schools. I can tell you it was a great success in Israel, especially. The Ministry of Education decided to adopt the program that we developed, and it is now part of the curriculum in all elementary schools in Israel. So this is a way that the science museum can influence and make an impact.

In what ways does the museum work to reach its goals?

We also work as a lab, because we are developing our own exhibits. We have a very professional workshop with many professionals from different disciplines – engineers, scientists, educators, people with social science and humanities backgrounds, and designers. We are all working together.

This is a lab for developing new exhibits and new tools to present science education, principles and phenomena. It is also a lab to develop new programs, new activities. So I can tell you that our main tool now is that we are trying to introduce – and we’ve already started to do it with a lot of success – a new approach to science, education and science culture.

This is called the “makers approach.” Makers are people who we used to call do-it-yourself people. They used to do things with their hands. We looked at them as hobbyists. Today, makers are spread all over. It’s a kind of new movement of people using tools and ideas, and they share them. Because technology is very accessible, because it is easy to do things with all the electronic devices, and it is very easy to share, there is a big wave of new approaches to people as innovators and entrepreneurs who call themselves makers.

We realize that this is a good approach for science education. It makes people engage in science education. We always say that young people are born as scientists and researchers and have a lot of curiosity and somehow, they lose it while they are in school.

We always try to understand why they lose it. We think they lose it because it’s not very relevant to them, and because they don’t see the challenge. Sometimes, you’re finding the answer to a question that the teacher already knows the answer. So you don’t feel like an explorer. And we want to very much to bring back the exploration spirit and the problem-solving process, and the ability to be engaged in it.

What are your ambitions for the museum’s role in Israel?

We used to say that science museums are a nice place to visit, but today science museums have an important role in changing science education as an informal institution, because more and more we realize that informal learning is very important.

They can help to engage citizens with very interesting scientific discussions, especially when it comes to ethics, social responsibility. We want citizens to be engaged. We want citizens to know more when they need to make decisions. There are always questions, like the way the city makes water or getting renewable energy. Those kinds of issues, every person needs to understand them in order to make their own decisions. It’s not just scientists or engineers who can take responsibility for us. 


This interview was edited and condensed for style and clarity.