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Museums (like education!) are wasted on the young, in my experience. When young, a museum was just a lot of unconnected items; that is, I just didn't know enoug

Museums (like education!) are wasted on the young, in my experience. When young, a museum was just a lot of unconnected items; that is, I just didn't know enough about the world and the history of it for anything in the museum to connect to anything I already knew. None of it meant anything to me and being there was thus dull. Now, almost any museum is interesting; the displays and exhibits will connect to things I already know about, places I have been, history I have already learned, cultures I've experienced, and something in my accumulated wisdom will make a new connection and fit better. Eventually it reaches the point where things that should sound like parodies, like a museum of drainage, becomes genuinely interesting.

dale_glass 4y ago
Children need museums that cater to them. Dragging a 6 year old into a building full of weird paintings or sculptures is a waste of time and only annoys the kid. There are plenty museums full of cool stuff that's either interesting them, or can be played with, or are outdoors and can be handled as just a pleasant walk through a cool looking place.
- defaultwizard 4y ago
  I think the science museum (also in London) is the perfect kind of museum for children. There's so many weird things that will interest the children in there.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Absolutely; or at least, I have fond memories of it from the early 90s when I was a kid myself.
- bodge5000 4y ago
  I remember going to the National Space Centre (there might be multiple in the UK, the one I remember was shaped like a giant white beehive) a lot as a kid. In fact, it seems to my memory that up until the age of ~14 every kids birthday was hosted there, and we never seemed to get bored of it. Looking back on it, I find it funny that out of all the amazing things there (a full sized rocket, some kind of capsule you could actually sit in and play with the controls on), the thing that continually fascinated me the most was a little audio visualiser with a microphone, so when you spoke into it the line would deform.
- oboes 4y ago
  There actually used to be a very interesting science museum in Brussels called Scientastic [1]. The museum was aimed at children and the exhibit consisted of many practical "magic tricks" illustrating some piece of science or technology. Things such as electromagnets, refraction effects, color theory, optical illusions, simple mechanical devices, simple chemistry experiments, etc. For example I remember first learning about the brachistochrone curve at this museum, even though I was too young at the time to know or care about its name. Or that you could use red cabbage juice as a natural pH indicator. Unfortunately the museum never got much funding or interest from the government, and at some point the museum was destroyed (possibly illegally) to make room for a shopping mall. [1] https://www.scientastic.com/EN/IntroE.htm https://www.scientastic.com/EN/IntroE.htm

dale_glass 4y ago

Children need museums that cater to them. Dragging a 6 year old into a building full of weird paintings or sculptures is a waste of time and only annoys the kid. There are plenty museums full of cool stuff that's either interesting them, or can be played with, or are outdoors and can be handled as just a pleasant walk through a cool looking place.

defaultwizard 4y ago
I think the science museum (also in London) is the perfect kind of museum for children. There's so many weird things that will interest the children in there.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Absolutely; or at least, I have fond memories of it from the early 90s when I was a kid myself.
bodge5000 4y ago
I remember going to the National Space Centre (there might be multiple in the UK, the one I remember was shaped like a giant white beehive) a lot as a kid. In fact, it seems to my memory that up until the age of ~14 every kids birthday was hosted there, and we never seemed to get bored of it. Looking back on it, I find it funny that out of all the amazing things there (a full sized rocket, some kind of capsule you could actually sit in and play with the controls on), the thing that continually fascinated me the most was a little audio visualiser with a microphone, so when you spoke into it the line would deform.
oboes 4y ago
There actually used to be a very interesting science museum in Brussels called Scientastic [1]. The museum was aimed at children and the exhibit consisted of many practical "magic tricks" illustrating some piece of science or technology. Things such as electromagnets, refraction effects, color theory, optical illusions, simple mechanical devices, simple chemistry experiments, etc. For example I remember first learning about the brachistochrone curve at this museum, even though I was too young at the time to know or care about its name. Or that you could use red cabbage juice as a natural pH indicator. Unfortunately the museum never got much funding or interest from the government, and at some point the museum was destroyed (possibly illegally) to make room for a shopping mall. [1] https://www.scientastic.com/EN/IntroE.htm https://www.scientastic.com/EN/IntroE.htm