by Deena Wang
Middle schoolers huddle in a darkened classroom, eyes focused on a 10- by 12- inch TV screen. On a staticky video tape, a bland voice narrates the story of conception, as sperm and egg conjoin and the fertilized egg begins to divide. Finally, the moment they’ve all been dreading arrives: a dark-haired head pops out of the mother’s vagina in a rush of blood, while in the classroom, the students cry in disgust and fake retching noises. Perhaps to ward against this traumatic lesson, the How Your Life Began exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science guides the viewer through the process of human reproduction, from fertilization to birth. However, the exhibit fails to attract the attention of its intended audience, middle-schoolers, due to its unattractive facade. Although scientifically accurate, the exhibit is out of date in comparison to the interactive exhibits in the rest of the museum.
It took me a bit of effort to even find the exhibit, tucked away as it is on the second floor of the Green Wing. Once at the entrance, the museum-goer must pull away from the adjacent room full of adorable hatching chicks and tamarin monkeys to enter the dimly-lit How Your Life Began exhibit. Under the title are placards of quotes—one from Shakespeare, others expressing various cultural perspectives on the “miracle” of birth, perhaps as a way to quell the sex-ed flashbacks of the viewer. The room itself is rather shabby, with threadbare carpet, adding to the generally unappealing atmosphere. The few children I saw walking in were prodded by their parents, and not very enthusiastic.
The viewer follows a logical, if somewhat boring, path. Moving clockwise, the glass display cases show models of the female and male reproductive systems, a video of the journey of sperm to the egg, a timeline of the growth of the fetus, and finally a mock hospital room with an incubator. The highest praise I have for the exhibit is that it is scientifically accurate. Detailed 3-D models show how the mother’s internal organs are compressed when the fetus grows. By spanning the timeline of the development of the fetus, the exhibit enables the viewer to follow the story of birth from gamete to hospital.
The entire place feels like a textbook come to life, in a bad way, however. Although the vocabulary of the placards is at a middle school level, I would be hard-pressed to find a 10- or 13-year-old who was willing to read an entire wall of text describing mitosis. The writing is not very inspired either, using the metaphor of two suitcase halves to describe the equal DNA contribution of each sex cell. All of the information about meiosis, chromosome counts, and the structure of the reproductive system in the main displays has been known for a very long time, and taught to generations of students. A token attempt is made to incorporate new research in the exhibit by adding printouts of websites to a flip-book, but the dense text is unappealing and easily passed over. Instead of merely repeating information that a student would eventually learn anyway, the exhibit could present conception and birth-related customs from many cultures, which would also tie into the quotes at the entrance.
Another flaw of the exhibit is its passive display of knowledge. The most interactive part of the entire display is pressing buttons to hear the sound of a fetal heartbeat, which reminds me unpleasantly of the Texas law that requires pregnant women seeking an abortion to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus. To show how the sperm reaches the egg, the exhibit has a video whose sound constantly shifts, so that I had to move around just to hear the narrator. The same information could be conveyed in a more engaging way by introducing a game in which the player guides the sperm up the vagina and through the fallopian tubes, following chemical signals.
An enclosed media room sits in the center of the exhibit, like an “adult” video theater. Within it is a choice of four films: fetal growth, vaginal delivery, cesarean section, and midwife-assisted birth. The vaginal delivery video could certainly be shortened, as the beginning had baffling scenes of the mother in labor taking a water bath and refusing a popsicle. The reason for including such innocuous details could be to assuage the fears of post-pubescent girls, but I believe shorter videos would be more watchable.
Near the end of the exhibit is the most “modern” section, describing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and its correlation with multiple births. Although perhaps controversial at the time of the exhibit’s creation, I feel that IVF is no longer so controversial nowadays. Better topics for debate might be breastfeeding, surrogate mothers, the Western world’s trend of delayed childbirth versus the increased chance of autism, and the possibility of creating sperm cells from egg cells.
An alternative way of bringing the exhibit up to date would be to focus on genetics and heredity, two subjects that are active areas of biological research. Heredity reaches beyond the simple Punnett squares taught in middle school and encompasses chromosome defects, sex-linked traits and epigenetics, i.e. heritable changes that are not dependent on the DNA sequence. These topics would make for good interactive exhibits, such as a game to determine the features of children from those of their parents. The museum could also pull ideas from cutting-edge genetics research, broadening the audience for the exhibit to include parents and college students.
How Your Life Began is a lackluster journey through the reproductive system, its educational mission stymied by over-reliance on text and video, textbook knowledge, and general lack of excitement. It’s clear to me that this exhibit could use a modern makeover. Applying the technology and interactivity found in the rest of the museum, I envision a redesigned space, featuring modern research and interactive elements, not to mention better lighting. An inherently fascinating subject, the story of birth merely needs the opportunity to shine.
Deena Wang is a member of the class of 2014, majoring in 6-7 (Computational Biology). She is the Campus Life Editor of the Tech, and enjoys musical theater, code projects, and running in her free time.
Wang was born in Tampa, Florida and frequently visited her family in China as a child. Her father, Kirk Ke Wang, introduced her to the contemporary art scene, from which she has had many interesting aesthetic experiences.
The Museum of Science review was inspired by the principle that criticism is more interesting to read than praise. She would like the museum to reevaluate the space, and update the displays.