HANDS OFF!
STORY: As children’s museums and edutainment places reopen, exhibits and experiments opt more for touchless learning to protect young people from catching the novel coronavirus
PHOTOS:
Before the Covid-19 lockdown, Dino Detective used to be the most popular play zone at Bangkok’s Children Discovery Museum. Usually crowded with eager children digging for fossils of dinosaurs buried under the sand, now only 10 young participants at a time are allowed in the zone due to the social distancing measures.
The same happens at the popular Bangkok Planetarium in the Science Centre for Education where the 280 seats were always fully booked for each session. Now, only 100 participants can be accommodated in the dome per session to enjoy the astronomy presentation.
After about four long months of being in a lockdown situation, Bangkok is gradually returning to some kind of normalcy — albeit a “new” norm. Families with children, students and the general public have returned to museums for edutainment. However, Covid-19 has left its imprint on the world. Before the outbreak, visitors thought nothing of interacting with the displays, such as touching the screens, objects and gadgets, all pulling on joysticks and trying out the interactive exhibits. However, now that has all changed as people are aware that touching any equipment may lead to a possible Covid-19 infection.
According to the Centre for Covid19 Situation Administration (CCSA), of around 3,250 total cases of Covid-19 infections in Thailand, only 62 were younger than 10 years old. Though the number of infected children isn’t as high as other age groups, young ones are still considered a vulnerable group who don’t know how to protect themselves. Therefore, it is important for these public edutainment establishments — like children’s museums — to have safety measures in place.
To prevent the young visitors from possible infection, Ditsaphon Matuampunwong, senior educator of the Science Centre for Education (SCE), and Sojirasami Kunsirichaiwat, head of the Children’s Discovery Museum (Chatuchak) at Children’s Discovery Museum (CDM), strictly follow CCSA guidelines. The standard guidance includes scanning the Thai Chana QR code, temperature screening, wearing masks, maintaining social distancing and providing hand sanitiser.
With an area of 30 rai, SCE has several entrances. To monitor everyone closely, the entrances are limited to three main gates. Sections in the SCE are divided into low-, medium-, or high-touch frequency zones that affect the allowed capacity and recommended time spent. For instance, Fun Science, which has a spinning wheel to learn about gravity, is defined as a high-touch frequency zone and thus maximum capacity is set at 10 people and duration no longer than 20 minutes. Three hand sanitisers are provided at these high-touch frequency zones.
“Each zone has a time limit and maximum capacity. If the number of visitors reaches our maximum capacity, we won’t allow more people to enter the area. At SCE, people can’t avoid touching or pressing buttons in order to interact with the gadgets, so our staff are positioned in every zone to wipe down the equipment after being used. In addition, visitors are required to use hand sanitiser before and after their time in each zone,” said Ditsaphon.
At the Children’s Discovery Museum, however, people are usually aware of
the fact the main visitors are families with children aged 12 and younger, which are vulnerable groups. Since its opening in 2001, CDM has provided hand sanitiser as well as arranged a big clean up every Monday, which is its regular closing day.
“In the past, visitors can spend one hour or longer at a zone. Now, they are allowed to stay in each zone for only 40 minutes. Our opening hours are from 10am to 4pm, but we closed every hour for 20 minutes in order to sanitise the museum. We also have a big clean up every evening. We clean the entrance and all areas around and in the buildings with disinfectant. On our Monday closing day, our cleaning staff spray disinfectant to sanitise the museum. After the pandemic, we clean more frequently and pay close attention to details,” said Sojirasami.
Social distancing is another measure stipulated by the CCSA that designates keeping a distance of at least 1m away from others when in public. Before the novel coronavirus arrived, Bangkok Planetarium was always packed. Today, audience seating is limited to 100 per session.
“The Bangkok Planetarium has 280 seating capacity, but now, we allow only 100 viewers to enter the dome during a presentation. Each group has to keep a distance of two seats away from the other groups in the auditorium. After the show, our cleaning staff wipe down the seats and other areas with disinfectant,” Ditsaphon said.
Children’s Discovery Museum emphasises social distancing of at least 1.5m and marks the floor to indicate spacing everywhere in the venue. Since CDM focuses on learning by interaction, children can’t avoid coming in contact with learning tools such as kitchen supplies, career outfits, paintbrushes and plastic construction toys.
“Previously 40 to 50 children were allowed in each zone, but now, we have limited the number of participants to only 10 per hour. After the tools are used, they will be cleaned,” said the head of CDM.
Since the Covid-19 vaccines aren’t available yet, any zone at edutainment centres that are at high risk for infection must be closed for visitors’ safety. CDM temporarily shut down its Water Play zone, which just reopened on July 10. SCE decided to close one of its exhibitions that involves a lot of touching in a dark room.
“In Building 4 on the 7th floor of SCE, there is a dark room for visitors to explore their sensory skills. People use their sense of touch and feel to learn about objects in the room. We closed down this dark room because of the risk involved with many hands touching the objects. There are many science exhibitions that require touching for learning in Building 2, but the building is closed for renovation,” said Ditsaphon.
Most visitors at SCE and CDM express concern about the pandemic, but wear masks and carry their own hand sanitiser. Overall, they are satisfied with SCE and CDM’s safety measures. One mother, Siri, who brought her two-year-old daughter Pim to Kid Town zone in SCE said she was still a bit worried about the outbreak even though the lockdown had been lifted for a while now.
“I make sure my daughter wears a mask and keeps her hands clean. I bring my own hand sanitiser and I tell Pim not touch the handrails,” Siri said.
A 38-year-old housewife, Aim, visited CDM with her three-year-old daughter Mila. She was satisfied to see that the Water Play zone was temporarily closed.
“Seeing the Water Play closed made me feel that the museum is taking protective measures for our safety. However, there is some equipment that children have to share, so I don’t allow my daughter to play with them,” Aim said.
For those who are still hesitant to visit edutainment establishments, both CDM and SCE provide knowledge and information on their Facebook pages. Sojirasami said if parents and children aren’t comfortable about visiting CDM in person, they can watch videos on Facebook.
The videos provide activities as well as interesting information for children to watch. In the future, SCE plans to provide online ticket reservations for the planetarium. With a restriction of only 100 seats at a time, many walk-ins are disappointed to not get a ticket or don’t want to wait such a long time for the next show. Also, the science exhibition in Building 2, which is currently under renovation, will reopen with more hands-off exhibitions that will be more risk free for visitors.
“In developed countries, there are many virtual exhibitions. We also plan to develop such exhibitions that don’t require touching by hand. They will only require body movements, but no direct hand contact. In the future, museums’ hands-off technology will become competitive. At science museums, it is difficult to learn without interacting with objects, so how can we provide interactive learning safely? We have to develop new exhibitions that are interesting as well as safe for the public,” said Ditsaphon.
AT SCIENCE MUSEUMS,
IT IS DIFFICULT TO LEARN WITHOUT INTERACTING WITH OBJECTS, SO HOW CAN WE PROVIDE INTERACTIVE LEARNING SAFELY?