Building on all these sources of inspiration we did not start with some scientific concepts we wanted people to learn. Instead, we created a list of skills and behaviours that we wanted our exhibits to encourage. They included observation, exploration, pattern recognition, experimentation, mental modelling and hypothesis making.

To develop this exhibition Life recognised that people construct knowledge for themselves, rather than passively absorb what’s fed to them, and they learn to learn as they learn.

Sobel, D. M. & Kirkham, N.Z. (2012). The influence of social information on children’s statistical and causal inferences. In F.Xu (Ed.). Rational constructivism in cognitive development.

Kirkham, N. Z. (2009). Altogether now: Learning through multiple sources. In S. P. Johnson (Ed.), Neoconstructivism: The new science of cognitive development. New York: Oxford University Press

Sobel, D. M., & Kirkham, N. Z. (2006). Blickets and babies: The development of causal reasoning in toddlers and infants. Developmental Psychology, 42, 1103-1115.

Sobel, D. M., & Kirkham, N. Z. (2007). Bayes nets and Babies: Infants’ developing representations of causal knowledge. Developmental Science, 10, 298-306.