Furniture Assignment - Angela

Class Discussion 2/12;

When reflecting on field trips and placement of tables in the classroom, I began thinking about camps and how different table groups behaved very differently. The tables were set up similarly to field trips during camp with three/four table groups and without a doubt the table that was back by the windows in the corner was always the table that was the least productive and had the most behavior problems.

I was there helping set up the rocket activity when they were trying to do it next to the rocket exhibit and the problem was that it was blocking the path for the emergency exit.

Furniture Assignment;

For the furniture assignment, we rearranged furniture at the roll-it-wall to test how the arrangement of furniture affects peoples behavior. In the drawing below, Round 1 is the typical set-up of the roll-it wall, with the cart on the right perpendicular to the roll-it-wall, Round 2 is set up with one cart and one stool on the other side of the door out to the terrace and Round 3 the cart is parallel to the roll-it-wall. During each Round guests interacted with the space slightly different, however their general interactions with the roll-it-wall remained the same during the 45 minute period. During all the rounds, guests chose to experiment with existing tracks and move/use pegs that were already on the wall or on the ground. However, in Round 2, I did observe more individuals coming up and looking/touching the cart and stool that was moved to the other side of the terrace door. I also observed guests putting pegs into the card but not taking any out. In addition, shortly after the stool was moved away from the roll-it-wall, a boy wanting to put a ball on a tall track found the stool and moved it to where he needed it. If the furniture were easy to manipulate such as the stools, people would manipulate it to suite their needs. As states in the Falk and Dierking article, people innately find ways to make sense of the environment, find patterns, and make order out of chaos. That boy made observations about the stool and made the connection that it “belonged” on the role-it-wall and it didn’t have a use where it was located. During Round 3, I predicted people would build on the cart since it was parallel to the wall as if it was part of the wall, however nobody built on it. A few peg pieces were places on the sides. What I did find was people were more inclined to place the pegs on the ends of the cart instead of in the holes where they typically are, using the cart as a table when building. This activity also led me to think about how moving other furniture in MOXI would effect their interactions with the exhibits.