23 Jun
1998
23 Jun
'98
11:09 p.m.
Incidentally, I spent a lot of time today in the
Boston Science Museum.
They have some old models, even a functional steam engine, but also a
lot of hands on junk. Although kids do enjoy touching things and often
regard untouchable museums as boring, there is the issue of the
usefullness of the things, and even the issue of what knowledge we are
propagating to the children. Many of the exhibits were broken. The
robots exhibit had an arm shooting hoops. The worst it got was with the
model of the NASA Dante II robot. It was hands-on, all right: press the
up button to move a leg up, and the down button to move it down. Just
one leg. BTW, they had an early Amiga in one kiosk. At any rate, I was
kinda bored with so much floor space taken up by junk.
The Boston Science Museum is an impressiv thing - or should be.
I been there twice. Theoretical they could be a in competition
with the Deutsches Museum, but in fact a lot displays look more
like a storage back yard than a museum. Just putin some maybe
similar things in one space, without any description or system.
The tragedy is that some are real nice things, but without
proper integration even the best exhibit is just crap no matter
if hands on or not. In contrast to the basic exhibitions, special
shows (like the 'Jurasic Park' exhibition or 'Boston Underground')
are made with a huge effort but only a little information to tell.
Maybe they are just no longer interestet in a general purpose (*G*)
museum and change to a theme park including merchandise ...
Gruss
H.
Btw: They have (had ?) a nice hands on display about mechanics
(ropes and levers), made completely from wood (Again just
standing senseles without any proper guide ).
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK