Just before Christmas, I had the pleasure of being invited along to a session at the Recycling Discovery Hub in Hume (a suburb of Canberra). The centre is normally only open to educational groups and special interest sessions, so I was super excited to go and check it out with a bunch of other enthusiastic museum and heritage educators.
The Recycling Discovery Hub is an ACT government project, led by Robbie Ladbrook. I was very lucky to have Robbie as my program leader during the Open Palaces Programme, and loved having a chance to see the project she has been working on in Australia. Opened in May 2018, the centre was created as a educational facility to enhance public understanding of how recycling and waste is processed. The space is connected to the actual recycling centre and has a pretty incredible view over the inside of the plant. What can’t be seen easily is displayed on large TV screens - the cameras are able to be refocused on the topic of discussion for the presenter. It’s a small space, which at first glance seems too small to hold much information. I was blown away by exactly how much of the space is interactive and the sheer amount of information is conveyed in easily understandable chunks. I walked in thinking that I already knew a lot about recycling, and walked out thinking “You know nothing, Amanda” but completely invigorated to know keep learning. When looking up information about the centre on the internet, what you will find a lot of information about the virtual reality interactive tour of the facility. Risk dictates that taking small people into the actual facility would be a terrible idea, so instead the tour is conducted via virtual reality. The experience included the participant sorting garbage, learning about the different symbols on plastic and driving forklifts. All very impressive and seemly enjoyable for the person driving the simulation. In Robbie’s paper at Waste 2018, she mentions the importance of capturing imagination to tap into curiosity. As much as I love virtual reality, the rest of the centre totally tapped into my curiosity. The space is devided into areas which discuss different types of waste and what happens to them. Almost everything is touchable. There are samples of waste, examples of what waste is turned into, low tech versions of waste organisers, drawers to go through, things to open. It’s a tactile learners dream. I have added a large number of photos below with my absolute highlights. Together with a great presentation, I left knowing far more then I did before entry. I found the experience engaging and highly enjoyable. I also think that the space would work for pretty much any demographic, which is an incredible feat by itself. I found myself at the end, not only wanting to be better at handling waste, but also inspired to find more ways in which to inspire curiosity in museums. Website: https://www.tccs.act.gov.au/recycling-and-waste/community/site-visits Waste 2018 - Building a better platform for community engagement (Robbie Ladbrook): https://www.coffswasteconference.com.au/QuickEventWebsitePortal/2018/waste/Agenda/AgendaItemDetail?id=48192932-2ece-a1a6-dd3e-39e0470f4b38 ACT PS News - Recycling won’t go to waste: https://psnews.com.au/2018/05/10/recycling-lessons-wont-go-to-waste/ Media moment demonstrating the space: https://twitter.com/actgovernment/status/994857228707430401?s=21
2 Comments
Robbie
1/22/2019 12:49:11 pm
It was great to hear your views, and have some peer feedback from someone so experienced in visitor interpretation. This blog is such a great resouce!
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Amanda
1/22/2019 07:57:17 pm
Thanks for that Robbie!
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Museum working, game playing and dog loving geek. Tune in for musings about the GLAM sector, and generally geekiness.
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