(January 29, 2010): World ORT has initiated a Mobile Science Museum, a series of five interactive exhibitions which will travel between host towns in Israel to entice children to study science.

A senior student from Shifman High School in Tirat HaCarmel with one of the Mada-Na exhibits.

The exhibitions, which cover mechanics, waves, optics, and liquids and gases, comprise Phase 10 of Science Journey (Kadima Mada) — a major program investing in the technological infrastructure and teacher training at high schools in more than 30 municipalities throughout Israel.

Each exhibition has 15 installations designed and developed by Danny Ovadia, Director of the Eshkol Payis in Misgav and a 2008 co-recipient of the Beatrice Wand-Polak Award given by World ORT to outstanding educators. The exhibits are currently housed in the Eshkol Payis communal science and art buildings in the peripheral municipalities of Kiryat Yam, Nesher, Tirat HaCarmel, Misgav and Ma’ale Yosef — each one adjacent to a school which participates in Science Journey. At the end of February, and every six months after that, the exhibitions will rotate between the host communities.

“ORT is giving our children the opportunity to see something interesting, something which motivates them to ask questions and listen to answers,” the Mayor of Tirat HaCarmel, Arieh Tal, told the opening ceremony as the last of the exhibits debuted at Schifman High School, a long-time beneficiary of the Science Journey program.  He continued, “Students go on to ask more questions and their interest grows. This brings them closer to understanding science and may help them follow this path in their studies and careers, which they can profit from later in life.”

“The exhibitions are a means of opening up new horizons for young people,” continued Mr. Tal. “By investing in this generation, future generations will benefit.” While three of Israel’s nine Nobel Prize winners have been scientists, less than 10 percent of Israeli children now study physics at school and fewer study it at university level.

Shelly Yonah, a physics teacher at Tirat HaCarmel who is responsible for running the exhibition noted, “The exhibition opened the students’ eyes to physics; it made them ask questions and gave them an opportunity to try things themselves. It makes them more curious about physics. Even children I don’t teach, those who have never even learned physics, walk around and start to wonder what physics is and whether it’s something that they should learn.” She received training from Ovadia on the usage of the exhibition and its installation.

Feedback questionnaires were prepared for people attending the exhibitions as well as teachers and senior students with manning the exhibits. The aim is to improve and adapt the displays and the training of staff and volunteers.