The Symposium on Science Festival, organized by the National Science Museum (NSM) Thailand, with the support of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation, has been arranged continuously alongside the National Science and Technology (NST) Fair, Thailand, for seven years. The program aims to create continuity and strengthen the cooperation network between science museums and centers, including relevant agencies at the international level, to foster cross-cultural exchanges of knowledge and experience regarding raising public awareness of and reinforcing citizen participation in science, technology, innovation, and the conservation of natural resources and the environment.

This year, as the massive consumption of natural resources to meet human needs and waste generation has affected the environment, the 7^th on Science Festival 2023 focuses on the role of museums in addressing global sustainability, especially attempting to make our practice more sustainable – being a net-zero-emission organization. It is organized under the theme “Museums in the Time of Climate and Ecological Crisis.” Established as an international platform for ASEAN and other countries to exchange knowledge and experiences in support of achieving the world's the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the symposium is open for representatives from museums and lifelong learning centers around the world to share their knowledge and experiences in developing and managing sustainable exhibitions and activities, such as sustainably and ethically designing, developing, and managing exhibitions. This is aimed at stimulating curators, educators, and staff of museums and lifelong learning centers to be aware of the exhibition and activity development and management that their organizations use to promote SDGs in various dimensions, such as developing, designing, producing, exhibiting, and managing exhibitions based on environmental-friendly and universal concepts. In total, the symposium has 990 attendees (65 attended onsite and 925 participated online through NSM Thailand's Facebook Live).

Moreover, special for this year, the NSM Thailand, in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Network of Science & Technology Centres (ASPAC) also organized the ASPAC Masterclass for Emerging Leaders (AMEL) 2023 under the theme “Curating in the Time of Climate and Ecological Crisis.” extended from the symposium. The workshop focuses on supporting young leaders from ASPAC member museums and learning centers, including curators, educators, and staff, to be aware of the development and management of their exhibitions and activities to align with SDGs. In this workshop, the young leader participants have the opportunity to attend not just the symposium (as a lecture part of the workshop) but also intensive discussions and practices around designing, developing, and managing exhibitions sustainably. In addition, the workshop serves as an opportunity to strengthen networks and collaborations among museums and learning centers to address global challenges. The workshop was attended by 17 young leaders from ASPAC member organizations across seven different nations.

In more detail, at the symposium, the NSM is very honored to have many experienced speakers who have been working on addressing SDGs in different contexts, ranging from regional to international contexts, from various nations to share perspectives, knowledge, and experiences to inspire and empower professionals and practitioners of museums and life-long learning centers to be able to help cope with global challenges. The symposium consists of four sessions.

In the first session, an experienced keynote speaker, Professor Dr. Shahbaz Khan, Director of UNESCO Multisectoral Regional Office for East Asia and UNESCO Representative to China, DPRK, Japan, Mongolia, and ROK, addresses the role of museums and learning centers towards achieving SGDs. He shares UNESCO’s missions and initiatives, in which the work of museums and learning centers is a key to the success of the initiatives to cope with global challenges. His presentation therefore illustrates the potential and capacity of museums and learning centers to bring positive changes to the world during this time of climate and ecological crises.

The second session is an overview of the Symposium on Science Festival by Dr. Ganigar Chen. She shares the origin of the symposium and how the events and their extended programs have been developing each year since 2017. She also addresses the objectives of the 7th Symposium on Science Festival 2023 and its link with AMEL 2023.

The third session, Special Session, emphasizes the exchange of perspectives and experiences of sustainable development and management from three museums from three different contexts: Tate Britain, National Taiwan Museum, and National Science Museum Thailand. In the session, three speakers, one from each organization, share examples of how they promote sustainability through their practices, ranging from their organization’s policy to the development and management of exhibitions and activities. From Tate Britain, Mr. Jed Fielder, Graphic Designer (Artworker), shares strategies, approaches, and tools that Tate, especially Tate Design Studio, uses to design, develop, and manage their exhibitions to be more environmentally friendly through two examples of the projects that he worked on with Tate.

From the National Taiwan Museum, Ms. Chao-Ling KUO, Assistant Researcher and Exhibition Coordinator, introduces using the Design Thinking Approach for making the development and management of exhibitions more sustainable through sharing her experiences designing and developing exhibitions for the museum. Based on the experiences, she proposes the principle for sustainable design, called ‘3Rs + 2 Friendly + 1 Message,’ that museums and learning centers can apply to make their exhibition development and management more sustainable.

From NSM Thailand, Dr. Nopparat Thepthepa, Director of Office of Natural Science Research, addresses how NSM Thailand adopt Bio-Circular-Green Economy (BCG) to guide the development and management of their projects to be more sustainable; she provides two examples of the projects: the temporary exhibitions for Thailand’s annual National Science and Technology (NST) Fair and the taxidermy for natural history exhibitions. The examples offer evidence that the BCG model significantly helps the organization reduce waste. Moreover, it generates a small income and strengthens collaborations between the organization and their partners.

In the fourth session, Panel Presentation and Discussion Session, six professionals and scientists from various science museums and learning centers from six countries share their experiences of developing exhibitions, educational programs, and research about sustainability and the environment using effective and sustainable methods. First, Ms. Serah Hoeks, a science communicator from Miraikan —the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation—in Tokyo, Japan, shares the development of an exhibition called ‘Ready to Act?! Plastic Waste,’ on display between April - August 2023 at Miraikan. The exhibition did not only touch upon a topic that relates to sustainability but was also designed with sustainable methods. Second, Ms. Karen Eyre Moshie Ortua-Artiaga, Director of Museo de Isarog (MDI), Philippines, discusses engaging local communities through ecological conversations from one of their outreach activities—MDI on Wheels. Third, Asst. Prof. Dr. Natapot Warrit, a researcher from the Department of Biology, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, presents his ongoing research centered on the application of biodiversity informatics to study pollinators in Thailand; the research intertwines the importance of natural history museum collections in the topic of climate change. 

Forth, Dr. Anne Dhanaraj, Senior Director of Education Programs from the Singapore Science Centre (SCS), talks about the ‘SCS Green Plan: Going on a Guilt Trip’ project that she works on with her colleagues, Dr. Liu Qi Chen and Chiou Ting Tan. Her talk focuses on fostering communication with communities and empowering the next generation to collectively contribute to building a sustainable future. Fifth, Ms. Li Ming, Vice Curator of the Guangxi Science & Technology Museum and Vice President of Guangxi Popular Science Writers’ Association, China, shares her insights and experiences on science communication to achieve global carbon peaks and carbon neutralization, referred to as ‘dual carbon.’ Lastly, Dr. Kenneth Monjero, Director of Science Centre of Kenya and President of Fun & Education Global Network (FEGNe), discusses his experiences in STEM engagement with African students and the challenges he encounters.

At the AMEL 2023 workshop, after attending the symposium, the participant young leaders further participated in intensive lectures to discuss issues around sustainable exhibitions, including what are sustainable exhibitions, who should take responsibility for the sustainability of exhibitions, policies or ways to design sustainable exhibitions, key factors that make sustainable design successful, challenges in developing and managing sustainable exhibitions, and how to evaluate the sustainability of an exhibition. Following the lectures, the participants were divided into four groups. Each group was assigned to pick a temporary exhibition from four exhibition choices (the ‘On the Edge of Extinction,’ ‘Deadly Traps,’ ‘Beauty and Me,’ and ‘Secret of Thai Flavors’ exhibitions) displayed at Thailand’s National Science and Technology Fair 2023 as a case study; they were asked to redesign their selected exhibition to be more sustainable and meet traveling exhibition criteria.

After touring the fair, all groups decided to redesign the ‘Secret of Thai Flavors’ exhibition. During the redesigning process of the redesign, all participants had the opportunity to apply all the knowledge and experiences that they learned from experienced people and their workshop peers into practice, including brainstorming and negotiating skills, the prioritization pyramid, exhibition design tools (creating exhibition floor plans using bubble charts and traffic flow), selecting more sustainable materials, and management. In addition to their designs, each group had the opportunity to build prototypes (models) of their exhibitions and present their ideas to get feedback from international experts and workshop colleagues.

In this final stage of the workshop, the workshop room was filled with fruitful discussion and exchange of knowledge, opinions, and collaboration among the participant young leaders and experienced people towards applying sustainable approaches and perspectives into their practices. This workshop tends to be a successful steppingstone to building capacity, mindset, and collaboration among these participant young leaders to drive ASPAC member museums to achieve sustainable commitment.

In summary, the 7^th Symposium on Science Festival 2023 on “Museums in the Time of Climate and Ecological Crisis” and the ASPAC Masterclass for Emerging Leaders (AMEL) 2023 on “Curating in the Time of Climate and Ecological Crisis” were run successfully. The events, as expected, tend to be an international platform for museums and learning centers in ASEAN and other countries to exchange knowledge and experiences, as well as to strengthen networks and collaborations among the organizations to support the achievement of the SDGs.