Mindball and Color Mixing Response - Kevin

Mindball

My biggest challenge on mind ball is navigating the question, “How does this work?”  I usually point out the hardware like wires from the headrest and how they lead to a machine inside the table.  I’ll tell guests that mind ball is measuring some kind of brain activity related to relaxing and ask them to try different methods to make the ball move.  I suggest things like meditating or deep breathing.  It seems like this is dissatisfying to guests because they want a more concrete answer.  Sometimes they’ll respond by saying, “Yeah but how does it work?”  

I like Juliana’s idea of having guests develop a theory.  This is what I try to do, but I think that making it explicit will help me avoid skirting around a direct explanation.  I am going to use this as a way to frame my interactions with guests.  When they ask how it works, I’ll respond by saying that the challenge is for them to develop their own theory and that I can help them with that.  First, they need to start with a question, like how does it work, and a possible answer like it’s measuring how relaxed I am.  Then I’ll prompt them to come up with ways to test their theory.  I am realizing that I usually end up hemming and hawing at this exhibit, which is probably where the guests' dissatisfaction comes from.  Having a go-to challenge in my back pocket will be comforting because the expectations of what a guest is supposed to do will be clear.  “The challenge at this exhibit is for you to develop a theory of how this machine works. The most successful theory will probably end up winning more games.”

Color mixing wheel

My best interactions at this exhibit have resulted from when I do the Light Program Cart nearby.  Towards the end of the demonstration, I like showing the guests how I can make a rainbow with the red, yellow, and blue clear plastic wands.  I ask them if they know the colors of a rainbow, and then what colors am I missing when I hold the three wands up.  Then we are able to add orange and green by blending the colors.  This is fairly straightforward but usually gets a positive response.  This directly leads to me pointing out the color mixing wheel.  I show them that I can do the same thing when I look through the wand at the big wheel.  Then I challenge them to figure out what the spinning colors are by working backward.  I point out the big blue circle and hold up the yellow wand to show that it makes green.  “Which smaller spinning circle is also yellow?”  

All my questions are geared to get kids to engage in argument based on evidence.  I try to provide small sentence frames in my questions and by modeling.  I know that circle is yellow because know that yellow and blue make green… etc”  I also challenge them to make colors once they have figured out what the colors are.  “What will you do to make that red circle turn orange?  How do you know that will work?”