%0 Journal Article
%T Turning energy around: an interactive exhibition experience
%A Sarah Kellberg
%A Christina Newinger
%D 2018
%V Special Issue: The Material Culture of Energy
%N Spring 2018
%K decision making
%K Deutsches Museum
%K energy literacy
%K energy transition
%K engagement
%K exhibition design
%K role playing game
%K socio-scientific issues
%K special exhibition
%K travelling exhibition
%X A transition from the fossil-fuel driven to a sustainable energy system is an enormous global challenge: climate change and finite resources require countries all over the world to change their way of producing, transporting and using energy. The Energiewende (energy transition) will require major changes in the current energy supply system in Germany – but also worldwide. These changes will not only affect the technical sector but will also include ecological questions, social issues and political matters.
Whether any transition is going to favour large scale solutions or decentralised technologies depends on local situations and global interconnections, and above all on a democratic process. Hence energy transition succeeds or fails with the acceptance and participation of society. To deal with this overwhelmingly complex topic and its multi-layered dependencies, the Deutsches Museum has designed an exhibition providing visitors with background knowledge about the necessities and challenges of energy transition, unpicking the links between the different technical, economic and social challenges. The exhibition accomplishes the task with an engaging and facilitating approach while taking into account the highly emotive aspects of energy transition as a societal issue. This paper presents the concept of the travelling exhibition energie.wenden, relating it to the Deutsches Museum´s tradition of exhibitions as well as to the challenge of how to deal with socio-scientific topics in scientific exhibitions.
%Z Energiewende, a term which stems originally from a booktitle: Energiewende: Wachstum und Wohlstand ohne Erdöl und Uran which can be translated to Energiewende: Growth and Prosperity without Petroleum or Uranium, Krause et al (1976). The term became popular when it was republished by the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut) in Freiburg in 1980 (Matthes, p 16) and it still describes the ongoing German energy transition which includes a nuclear phase out.

%Z We expect these age groups to have a basic school-based knowledge of energy. As the German physics curriculum deals with energy from classes 8 to 10 the students should already be familiar with energy transfer, conservation and different forms of energy.

%Z https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/29417/umfrage/anteil-der-atomenergie-an-der-stromerzeugung-in-japan/
%Z http://www.forschungsradar.de/fileadmin/content/bilder/Vergleichsgrafiken/meta_verkehrsinstrumente_2016/AEE_Metaanalyse_Verkehrsinstrumente_jul16.pdf
%Z This decision station is in the middle of the exhibition room. It may have been visited less often because it is overlooked, or is not reached in the end. Further research should show why visitors choose to visit the ‘Organic Resources’ decision station so much less.

%Z The KiSOC is funded by the Leibniz Association, the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN), Kiel University (CAU), and the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Social Affairs.

%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/turning-energy-around/
%J Science Museum Group Journal