In 1993, facing a future of escalating land-use controversies and a less than
sympathetic public attitude towards mining, major corporations in the British
Columbia mining industry and the provincial government invested in a public
education project: Vancouver's Science World's Mine Games exhibit.
This thesis will examine two pedagogical highlights of the Mine Games exhibit
promoted by Science World and its sponsors. They are the interactivity of the
exhibit (as evidenced by the hands-on stations and the computer games) and the
decision-making or 'consensus-building' process experienced in the simulated
town-meeting, Hotseat! One of the virtues of an exhibition that explicitly makes
a case for its merits and attempts to tell an important story is that it encourages
debate and makes possible the suggestion of other stories.
In this thesis, I critique Mine Games on the claims it has made for itself. The
thesis adopts a comparative approach, contrasting the pedagogical goals and
content of the Mine Games exhibit with school based mining curriculum. I argue
that the narrative and museological conventions of the exhibit reveal the story
of Mine Games for what it is — a specific, comedic story that excludes other
stories. Hidden under the facade of high-tech displays and computer games is a
traditional approach used both in schools and museums to exercise control and
deliver a non-threatening message: environmental controversies are resolvable,
all it takes is reasoned compromise.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/4618 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Korteweg, Elisabeth (Lisa) Maria |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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