Notes on facilitation - heartbeat drum and telescopes -Sam S.

Heartbeat drum - Danielle

At the heartbeat drum, I've had success and frustrations in facilitation. Some of the greatest challenges have been in leading inquiry that follows the process of picking up a heartbeat from the metal rings into creating the drumbeat. It's very non-intuitive that the metal rings are picking up your heartbeat, since the hands aren't a classic place to feel a heartbeat, like the chest or throat. Most young guests also don't have the experience of using similar technology on a cardio machine in a gym, for example. I've often had trouble in finding the right prompt in bringing them to understand that the metal rings actually do something. A few prompts that have had some success:

- "What happens when you take your hands off?"
- "Is yours beating at the same speed as (friend on the other side)? Why not?"
- "What does the number on the drum mean? Is it changing or staying the same?"
- "What does the drum sound like? What does it remind you of?"
- Optimizing practice: after they've discovered it's their heartbeat, ask them what they can do to change their heartbeat, both to make it go up and go down. 

I feel that there aren't a very wide range of practices to expand into, so most facilitation at the heartbeat drum will consist of maximizing engagement and optimizing practices, specifically focusing on the ways to change heart rate, as well as the mechanism of the drum reading one's pulse. This is one of the few exhibits throughout MOXI that can incorporate biology -- it may be possible to incorporate an investigation into the concept of electrical currents in the body.


Telescopes - Kevin

I agree that facilitation at the telescopes is most effective when one focuses on changing singular variables. I've also had success in opening inquiry into any scope by asking guests to first identify differences that jump out to them between scopes. When they switch from the telescope to the infrared viewer, for example, they may immediately say that the colors are different. By allowing guests to identify differences on their own, and constraining observations in that way, it allows for more focused facilitation afterwards. I've found that once they identify a main difference (this one has funny colors, this one has red letters and numbers, etc), then you can investigate what that difference in particular means, how it changes, what they can control about it. This dovetails nicely with your distinction between seeing and observing. This strategy can also work well in comparing between the scope vision and their own vision. By condensing their observations into comparisons they can verbalize, then you can begin to maximize engagement by pushing them into identifying the reasons why these differences exist.

- Sam S.