5 ms·

One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.

gullywhumper 1y ago
Visiting my parents this summer with my kids, I was excited to find that the zoo served beer. That definitely wasn't an option for my dad when I was growing up.
- vel0city 1y ago
  The zoo near us had boozy lemonade stands on Labor Day this year. Quite refreshing.
greyb 1y ago
I get the economics of it for science museums, but at least science museums in major cities tend to have adults-only nights now.
- MarkusQ 1y ago
  Where the adults get to act like kids and drink. They don't add substance to the exhibits, they don't attempt to educate, they just attempt to tap an adjacent market for the same dumbed down slop. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the _idea_, just a huge critic of the _implementation_.)
  - OkayPhysicist 1y ago
    The Exploratorium had a few speakers at the adult night that I went to. It was definitely on the pop-sci end of the spectrum, but it was definitely not dumbed down to kid levels. Heck, even during normal operations, I'd say the Exploratorium walks a fair line between "approachable to children" and "teaching more science topics than we expect most adults to know".
  - parpfish 1y ago
    Agreed. They make it into a space for adults by simply removing kids and adding beer. It’s good for a casual date, but you don’t actually get adult level content. I want the actual exhibits and content to be able to teach things to adults and not just signs with “wacky trivia” meant to engage kids for two seconds while they sprint to the next thing that has a button for them to push (e.g., one of the worst genre of “wacky facts” are stupid size comparisons about how things are bigger than X football fields or Y school busses). Tl;dr You could get drunk while you’re watching Zoboomafoo, but that doesn’t suddenly make it it for adults the way that an Attenborough documentary is.
    - kridsdale1 1y ago
      I really soured on the whole “wow can you believe this crazy science fact” targeted for adults kind of media when Instagram and Subreddits like “I Fucking Love Science” got massively popular. Which of course led to them enshitifying, then being worthwhile conduits for propaganda. “SCIENCE FACT! Republican voters are known to be morons who don’t want to learn anything! Like and subscribe!”
      - cogman10 1y ago
        I soured on science media when I learned just how terrible the "journalists" and editors are. "Scientists find super duper magic unobtanium which does mystical things that will revolutionize the world!" Click through and "Bob found a conductor with slightly lower resistance than a previous material. It's created by a 500 step process which results in an organic chain that breaks down in temps above -40C." The issue with the medium is every day needs an exciting headline. So they make them up rather than waiting for them to come.
      - watwut 1y ago
        Sounds correct about republican voters tho. And everyone suffers because of it.
        bluGill 1y ago
        Everyone suffers because you believe that stereotype instead of getting to know republicans and discovering it is false - many of them love science (who you vote for is a compromise - nobody will support everything you want them to)
thaumasiotes 1y ago
I visited part of the Smithsonian recently (the natural history museum) and the level of patronizing displays is truly incredible. It seems pretty clear that if you're more than 10 years old, you're not supposed to be in there. But that feels like a development of recent decades. On the other hand, zoos seem to have become more adult-oriented and less children-oriented over time.
- saltcured 1y ago
  That's disappointing. I liked to believe it would remain an example of a good museum after other places followed this trend. But on the west coast, I've had no reason to visit the Smithsonian in many decades. I'm still unsure whether changes I see are all about the facility or partially about my changed perspective. I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the La Brea Tar Pits in the past decade, and I found neither of them stands up to my memory of them from 1980s school field trips.
jacobolus 1y ago
Art museums could be made friendlier for kids, but they would need significant design and maintenance effort. In particular: many kids need a lot of running around, want to play with things with their hands, and get quickly bored just standing and looking at artworks. It would be nice if there were better art museums for kids though. (For what it's worth, there are plenty of non-interactive and thus boring-for-kids science, technology, history, etc. museums if you look around.)
- flowerthoughts 1y ago
  Yeah, this must be a negotiated market at this point... Kids not being interested in art museums, and thus art museums not bothering making it family friendly. However, I have to say the computer history museum in Mountain View was nice and felt serious. So I think placing all science museums under one umbrella is a bit harsh.
- Poomba 1y ago
  There are some art museums around the DC area where kids can paint and draw things, but those are indeed a minority
- el_benhameen 1y ago
  I took my 6 and 8 year old to SFMOMA and they loved it, to the point that they’ve asked to go (and have gone) to several more “boring” art museums since. We had a talk about ground rules (quiet voices, hands to self, no running, no exceptions) beforehand, and the mood of the place helped enforce those rules. A big, crowded space can be powerful in its quietness. A lot of the weird, experimental, and experiential pieces seemed to scratch the novelty itch that they might otherwise get by running around or touching stuff. We were all ready to leave at the same time … or actually, I wanted to leave before they were ready, so it wasn’t like they got bored quickly. They are not uniquely quiet or well behaved kids, either—quite chaotic a lot of the time, really. I think a lot of people don’t give kids a chance to experience these kinds of places because they assume the kids won’t do well, which is too bad.
  - jacobolus 1y ago
vel0city 1y ago
Just for clarification, are you upset that art museums tend to be less kid-focused, or that science museums and zoos tend to be overly kid focused? Both seem to be things to be potentially concerned about IMO.
Mistletoe 1y ago
Our science museum has dumbed everything down to where truly only a child could enjoy it and they don’t even seem to like it much. When I was a child the exhibits were so different and really interesting to both ages. Now it’s the most homogenized crap imaginable. Something only Blippi (the lobotomized) could love. I donate blood there and I’m never even tempted to go look at an exhibit. A lot of this happened in just the past few years, maybe they are just matching their reading and science impaired audience, I don’t know.
cesaref 1y ago
There are exceptions - here in the UK we have the RI: https://www.rigb.org/ https://www.rigb.org/ The Christmas lectures are probably the most famous thing they do, and these have definitely moved in a more 'child' focussed direction. If you were attending the Christmas lectures in the 1850s however, the audience would have been middle class victorioans, and you'd have had Michael Faraday telling you about electricity, forces, chemistry etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution_Christmas_Lectures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution_Christmas_Le... I would recommend attending one of their lectures if you happen to find yourself in London, just to be in the building, and to sit in the lecture theatre!
- gecko6 1y ago
  Listening to the Christmas lectures was a high point of my childhood, and everyone in my family still remembers and talks about the ones we watched.
dfxm12 1y ago
I'm not sure which way you're going with this, but the Philadelphia Museum of Art, down the street from the Franklin Institute, isn't specifically geared towards adults and has lots of programming specifically for kids. Seeing Rubens' Prometheus Bound there as a child as part of such a program left me in awe. I remember the feeling to this day. Every time I go, I see families with young children or even just groups of teens there. The Philadelphia Zoo also has events planned specifically for adults. My girlfriend and I went to one a few months ago. I'm not sure what specifically about the Philadelphia zoo, the Bronx zoo, the Shedd aquarium, etc. is for specifically geared towards kids, though.
SilverElfin 1y ago
I agree with you but I also think it’s hard for kids to appreciate art without life experience. At least in a full way.
- smelendez 1y ago
  And history, until you've had some life experience and seen the world change, which is a lot of what makes art and science museums more interesting.
badgersnake 1y ago
Same, not everything should be for kids. It’s become pretty evident that the adult population doesn’t know science.
headcanon 1y ago
Largely agreed, with one exception. If you're ever in Boston/Cambridge MA, check out the MIT museum. I've always told people that its a science museum but for adults. The Harvard museums are worth visiting as well, but the MIT museum really impressed me with their content.
- throwawayoldie 1y ago
  It's good. Not that big though. But what there is, is worth seeing.
- kccqzy 1y ago
  The MIT museum isn't very good. It is a science museum for adults, but it is too passive an experience for the patron. I recommend the Exploratorium in San Francisco instead as the science museum for adults.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    I've only been to a play (staged reading) at the new one but, in general, I'm not sure how interested most adults are in interactivity. I've been to the Exploratorium for an event and it was fun. (Having those sort of distractions are nice when you're tired of feeling like you need to speak to people at an event.) But not sure I'd have made a trip there otherwise.
  - headcanon 1y ago
    I'll keep that in mind next time I'm in SF, thanks for the recommendation!
dcminter 1y ago
It drives me absolutely bananas that the "interpretation" (fancy museum word for "signs") at science museums is so parsimonious. Some fascinating device vital to the history of an important branch of science will have a brief paragraph about the person who invented it, nothing about what it's for, and then just a date and the device name. Often there's little or nothing further even in the museum shop. It's a crying shame.
- gowld 1y ago
  I have a hobby of photographing scientifically incorrect explanations on placards at science museums. Usually found in smaller towns.
  - pklausler 1y ago
    Been to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky yet?
  - dcminter 1y ago
    I want to see these!
  - bigfishrunning 1y ago
    My favorite example of this is an exhibit that I saw at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh many years ago. There was a diorama of several forest animals, and an interface that shined lights on animals with different features. The "lays eggs" light shined on an assortment of animals including a Rabbit. Rabbits don't lay eggs, they only deliver them to good boys and girls. We pointed this out to a worker that day. Several years later, we went back to see that the exhibit had not changed. I'm not sure if it's still there today.
    - rerdavies 1y ago
      Obviously, an easter egg. Well done Carnegie Museum! :-)
- mattkrause 1y ago
imglorp 1y ago
Certainly now, yes. But back in the 70's, OP's museum -- Franklin Institute (fi.edu) -- used to have serious lectures, classes, and even some research. Upstairs there used to be lecture rooms, a library, and classrooms.
reenorap 1y ago
Exploratorium and Academy of Sciences in SF have adult nights I believe. I remember attending a Yelp Elite event back in the day at the Exploratorium at night and it was pretty fun.
- kridsdale1 1y ago
  Back when big tech did Christmas parties but before they had hired so many people they wouldn’t all fit in a museum (thus requiring the renting of hangars), we booked this whole place for the night. It was great as everyone was dressed to the nines and drinking while the staff taught us about fish and quasars or something.
GuB-42 1y ago
I think that science museums being places for kids is a good thing. The are the ones who benefit the most. If you want science for grownups, you have conferences. Also, that it is for kids doesn't make it impossible to enjoy as an adult, especially if it is about things you are unfamiliar with. Now, if you go to a science museum and think "only a kid can enjoy that". Then the problem is not that it is a place for kids, it is that it is just bad. It is a thing Disney understood very well, its classics may look like they are for kids, but they are actually enjoyable by everyone, and it is a big reason for their success. As for art museums, the problem is that they are usually just exhibitions, and to be honest, that's boring, especially if you are a kid. That's unlike a science museum where they actually try to teach you science. It is only interesting if you are already well into that kind of art, and most kids aren't (yet?). History museums are kind of a middle ground as they can do the double duty of teaching history (mostly for kids) and showing off artefacts to people who are already into that (mostly for grownups).
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > science museums being places for kids is a good thing. The are the ones who benefit the most I'm not sure how you can look at the current state of scientific literacy in America and conclude this. > art museums, the problem is that they are usually just exhibitions, and to be honest, that's boring, especially if you are a kid There are historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art that make it beautiful beyond the aesthetic.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    > There are historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art that make it beautiful beyond the aesthetic. Those are in the eye of the beholder though. In many cases they are things I still don't care about after learning about them. An ugly painting doesn't become any more interesting to me when I learn about the struggles the artist went through - a lot of people do find it more interesting - good for them, but it isn't for me. (then again the paintings I'm thinking of most people thought were nice even before they learned about the artist...)
Telemakhos 1y ago
There's an interactive Leondardo da Vinci museum in Firenze that does a good job of appealing to both. It's full of kids, because it's interactive, but you could fill it with adults just as easily.
geye1234 1y ago
I don't remember the big Kensington museums being like that when I was a kid. There was a kids' section or two, but the rest was clearly for adults (and has stuck in my memory just as much, if not more than, the kids' sections). Seeing the real Apollo 10 (I don't remember which module) sticks very clearly in my memory. I also rode on a "heritage" train recently, and what struck me the most was that the interior decor of the passenger cars looked as though it had been designed for and by grown-ups.
- floren 1y ago
  > Seeing the real Apollo 10 (I don't remember which module) sticks very clearly in my memory. The only part that made it back to Earth was the Command Module, so if you saw something from the actual Apollo 10 mission, it was the CM.
  - geye1234 1y ago
    Yep, makes sense, and looks like they still have it: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co40509/apollo-10-command-module-call-sign-charlie-brown https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co40509...
- graemep 1y ago
  I have taken my kids to them at various ages (from five upwards). I think lots for both adults and children. The National Gallery used to do great guided tours for kids, explaining paintings in a fun way.
- rerdavies 1y ago
  The blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling of the Museum of Natural History left an indelible impression in my mind when I was six. I hope it's still there.
kkylin 1y ago
Quite agree with the sentiment, and the presentation of science to the public in general. However, that probably also reflects a rather accurate assessment of scientific literacy in the general population on the part of planners. Anyway, among US museums of natural history & science, a prominent exception is the AMNH in NYC: yes there are things for kids, but also things for "grownups". After dozens of visits I still learn something new every time.
- deleted 1y ago
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ginko 1y ago
You should check out the Deutsches Museum if you're in Munich sometime.
jimbokun 1y ago
You're right. Kids should be able to enjoy art, too!
michael1999 1y ago
If you ever get a chance, the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow has a permanent display of some of Lord Kevlin's instruments. You can look at the actual tools used to characterize the volt, the amp, and the electro-static forces. https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=16534&catType=C&referrer=/results&q=kelvin https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=16534&catTyp...
lnx01 1y ago
The most fun I've ever had in a museum was at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. The exhibits are interactive, educational, fun... mostly for kids... I was 33 years old... I'd love to go back and do it all again.
kccqzy 1y ago
I didn't understand art as a kid. You need experience, culture, history, and often at least a cursory understanding of religion to understand art. Art is an expression by the artist. It is necessary to understand the milieu of the artist first. Science is universal. It crosses time and language barriers. The underlying physical principles are immutable. Kids can be expected to understand science museum exhibits after a few minutes of explanation. You can't explain the historical and social context behind a painting in just a few minutes to a kid.
UtopiaPunk 1y ago
I've seen a few different science museums and the like have a special day of the week where they stay open later and are 21+. Booze is involved. I've never been, but it seems like it could be a fun time.
IAmBroom 1y ago
Pittsburgh's Science Center has over-21 events all the time. They're very popular.
tgbugs 1y ago
One science museum that is not like that is the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin, at least when I was there (shudder) about a decade ago. It was a museum that was designed for parents to explain to children. The written material for any given piece in an exhibit went into sufficient detail and successive sections of writing would build on each other without necessarily requiring that the previous section had been read. Back then the museum had an exhibition on the longitude problem and time keeping, precision, drift, etc. that walked you through the development of increasingly accurate chronometers, the practical reasons why, etc. It was an absolute masterwork exhibit, and it expected the adults to be actively engaged with helping digest the material with the kids.
Aeolun 1y ago
Nothing about a science museum filled with kids precludes you from playing with the exhibits yourself.
- necovek 1y ago
  It is really tough to queue up along with kids who are not letting go of any interactive exhibit easily — and similarly tough to explore it well while there are kids waiting behind you. So in theory you are right, in practice there is a lot of social pressure to bear to do it. The best is if you can go in outside peak hours (take day off work etc).
efskap 1y ago
I mean as a kid, zoos are "wow cool, animals :)", while as an adult, you realize that they're basically prisons profiting off animal exploitation for entertainment
- 1718627440 1y ago
  > they're basically prisons Sure, a zoo can never simulate reality exactly, but they come pretty close now-a-days. Animals have several square kilometers to run and it's crazy how they are able to simulate different climates. A lot of animals now only exist in zoos since the natural environment now got inhabitable.

gullywhumper 1y ago

Visiting my parents this summer with my kids, I was excited to find that the zoo served beer. That definitely wasn't an option for my dad when I was growing up.

vel0city 1y ago
The zoo near us had boozy lemonade stands on Labor Day this year. Quite refreshing.

greyb 1y ago

I get the economics of it for science museums, but at least science museums in major cities tend to have adults-only nights now.

MarkusQ 1y ago
Where the adults get to act like kids and drink. They don't add substance to the exhibits, they don't attempt to educate, they just attempt to tap an adjacent market for the same dumbed down slop. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the _idea_, just a huge critic of the _implementation_.)
- OkayPhysicist 1y ago
  The Exploratorium had a few speakers at the adult night that I went to. It was definitely on the pop-sci end of the spectrum, but it was definitely not dumbed down to kid levels. Heck, even during normal operations, I'd say the Exploratorium walks a fair line between "approachable to children" and "teaching more science topics than we expect most adults to know".
- parpfish 1y ago
  Agreed. They make it into a space for adults by simply removing kids and adding beer. It’s good for a casual date, but you don’t actually get adult level content. I want the actual exhibits and content to be able to teach things to adults and not just signs with “wacky trivia” meant to engage kids for two seconds while they sprint to the next thing that has a button for them to push (e.g., one of the worst genre of “wacky facts” are stupid size comparisons about how things are bigger than X football fields or Y school busses). Tl;dr You could get drunk while you’re watching Zoboomafoo, but that doesn’t suddenly make it it for adults the way that an Attenborough documentary is.
  - kridsdale1 1y ago
    I really soured on the whole “wow can you believe this crazy science fact” targeted for adults kind of media when Instagram and Subreddits like “I Fucking Love Science” got massively popular. Which of course led to them enshitifying, then being worthwhile conduits for propaganda. “SCIENCE FACT! Republican voters are known to be morons who don’t want to learn anything! Like and subscribe!”
    - cogman10 1y ago
      I soured on science media when I learned just how terrible the "journalists" and editors are. "Scientists find super duper magic unobtanium which does mystical things that will revolutionize the world!" Click through and "Bob found a conductor with slightly lower resistance than a previous material. It's created by a 500 step process which results in an organic chain that breaks down in temps above -40C." The issue with the medium is every day needs an exciting headline. So they make them up rather than waiting for them to come.
    - watwut 1y ago
      Sounds correct about republican voters tho. And everyone suffers because of it.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        Everyone suffers because you believe that stereotype instead of getting to know republicans and discovering it is false - many of them love science (who you vote for is a compromise - nobody will support everything you want them to)

thaumasiotes 1y ago

I visited part of the Smithsonian recently (the natural history museum) and the level of patronizing displays is truly incredible. It seems pretty clear that if you're more than 10 years old, you're not supposed to be in there. But that feels like a development of recent decades. On the other hand, zoos seem to have become more adult-oriented and less children-oriented over time.

saltcured 1y ago
That's disappointing. I liked to believe it would remain an example of a good museum after other places followed this trend. But on the west coast, I've had no reason to visit the Smithsonian in many decades. I'm still unsure whether changes I see are all about the facility or partially about my changed perspective. I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the La Brea Tar Pits in the past decade, and I found neither of them stands up to my memory of them from 1980s school field trips.

jacobolus 1y ago

Art museums could be made friendlier for kids, but they would need significant design and maintenance effort. In particular: many kids need a lot of running around, want to play with things with their hands, and get quickly bored just standing and looking at artworks. It would be nice if there were better art museums for kids though. (For what it's worth, there are plenty of non-interactive and thus boring-for-kids science, technology, history, etc. museums if you look around.)

flowerthoughts 1y ago
Yeah, this must be a negotiated market at this point... Kids not being interested in art museums, and thus art museums not bothering making it family friendly. However, I have to say the computer history museum in Mountain View was nice and felt serious. So I think placing all science museums under one umbrella is a bit harsh.
Poomba 1y ago
There are some art museums around the DC area where kids can paint and draw things, but those are indeed a minority
el_benhameen 1y ago
I took my 6 and 8 year old to SFMOMA and they loved it, to the point that they’ve asked to go (and have gone) to several more “boring” art museums since. We had a talk about ground rules (quiet voices, hands to self, no running, no exceptions) beforehand, and the mood of the place helped enforce those rules. A big, crowded space can be powerful in its quietness. A lot of the weird, experimental, and experiential pieces seemed to scratch the novelty itch that they might otherwise get by running around or touching stuff. We were all ready to leave at the same time … or actually, I wanted to leave before they were ready, so it wasn’t like they got bored quickly. They are not uniquely quiet or well behaved kids, either—quite chaotic a lot of the time, really. I think a lot of people don’t give kids a chance to experience these kinds of places because they assume the kids won’t do well, which is too bad.
- jacobolus 1y ago

vel0city 1y ago

Just for clarification, are you upset that art museums tend to be less kid-focused, or that science museums and zoos tend to be overly kid focused? Both seem to be things to be potentially concerned about IMO.

Mistletoe 1y ago

Our science museum has dumbed everything down to where truly only a child could enjoy it and they don’t even seem to like it much. When I was a child the exhibits were so different and really interesting to both ages. Now it’s the most homogenized crap imaginable. Something only Blippi (the lobotomized) could love. I donate blood there and I’m never even tempted to go look at an exhibit. A lot of this happened in just the past few years, maybe they are just matching their reading and science impaired audience, I don’t know.

cesaref 1y ago

There are exceptions - here in the UK we have the RI: https://www.rigb.org/ https://www.rigb.org/ The Christmas lectures are probably the most famous thing they do, and these have definitely moved in a more 'child' focussed direction. If you were attending the Christmas lectures in the 1850s however, the audience would have been middle class victorioans, and you'd have had Michael Faraday telling you about electricity, forces, chemistry etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution_Christmas_Lectures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution_Christmas_Le... I would recommend attending one of their lectures if you happen to find yourself in London, just to be in the building, and to sit in the lecture theatre!

gecko6 1y ago
Listening to the Christmas lectures was a high point of my childhood, and everyone in my family still remembers and talks about the ones we watched.

dfxm12 1y ago

I'm not sure which way you're going with this, but the Philadelphia Museum of Art, down the street from the Franklin Institute, isn't specifically geared towards adults and has lots of programming specifically for kids. Seeing Rubens' Prometheus Bound there as a child as part of such a program left me in awe. I remember the feeling to this day. Every time I go, I see families with young children or even just groups of teens there. The Philadelphia Zoo also has events planned specifically for adults. My girlfriend and I went to one a few months ago. I'm not sure what specifically about the Philadelphia zoo, the Bronx zoo, the Shedd aquarium, etc. is for specifically geared towards kids, though.

SilverElfin 1y ago

I agree with you but I also think it’s hard for kids to appreciate art without life experience. At least in a full way.

smelendez 1y ago
And history, until you've had some life experience and seen the world change, which is a lot of what makes art and science museums more interesting.

badgersnake 1y ago

Same, not everything should be for kids. It’s become pretty evident that the adult population doesn’t know science.

headcanon 1y ago

Largely agreed, with one exception. If you're ever in Boston/Cambridge MA, check out the MIT museum. I've always told people that its a science museum but for adults. The Harvard museums are worth visiting as well, but the MIT museum really impressed me with their content.

throwawayoldie 1y ago
It's good. Not that big though. But what there is, is worth seeing.
kccqzy 1y ago
The MIT museum isn't very good. It is a science museum for adults, but it is too passive an experience for the patron. I recommend the Exploratorium in San Francisco instead as the science museum for adults.
- ghaff 1y ago
  I've only been to a play (staged reading) at the new one but, in general, I'm not sure how interested most adults are in interactivity. I've been to the Exploratorium for an event and it was fun. (Having those sort of distractions are nice when you're tired of feeling like you need to speak to people at an event.) But not sure I'd have made a trip there otherwise.
- headcanon 1y ago
  I'll keep that in mind next time I'm in SF, thanks for the recommendation!

dcminter 1y ago

It drives me absolutely bananas that the "interpretation" (fancy museum word for "signs") at science museums is so parsimonious. Some fascinating device vital to the history of an important branch of science will have a brief paragraph about the person who invented it, nothing about what it's for, and then just a date and the device name. Often there's little or nothing further even in the museum shop. It's a crying shame.

gowld 1y ago
I have a hobby of photographing scientifically incorrect explanations on placards at science museums. Usually found in smaller towns.
- pklausler 1y ago
  Been to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky yet?
- dcminter 1y ago
  I want to see these!
- bigfishrunning 1y ago
  My favorite example of this is an exhibit that I saw at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh many years ago. There was a diorama of several forest animals, and an interface that shined lights on animals with different features. The "lays eggs" light shined on an assortment of animals including a Rabbit. Rabbits don't lay eggs, they only deliver them to good boys and girls. We pointed this out to a worker that day. Several years later, we went back to see that the exhibit had not changed. I'm not sure if it's still there today.
  - rerdavies 1y ago
    Obviously, an easter egg. Well done Carnegie Museum! :-)
mattkrause 1y ago

imglorp 1y ago

Certainly now, yes. But back in the 70's, OP's museum -- Franklin Institute (fi.edu) -- used to have serious lectures, classes, and even some research. Upstairs there used to be lecture rooms, a library, and classrooms.

reenorap 1y ago

Exploratorium and Academy of Sciences in SF have adult nights I believe. I remember attending a Yelp Elite event back in the day at the Exploratorium at night and it was pretty fun.

kridsdale1 1y ago
Back when big tech did Christmas parties but before they had hired so many people they wouldn’t all fit in a museum (thus requiring the renting of hangars), we booked this whole place for the night. It was great as everyone was dressed to the nines and drinking while the staff taught us about fish and quasars or something.

GuB-42 1y ago

I think that science museums being places for kids is a good thing. The are the ones who benefit the most. If you want science for grownups, you have conferences. Also, that it is for kids doesn't make it impossible to enjoy as an adult, especially if it is about things you are unfamiliar with. Now, if you go to a science museum and think "only a kid can enjoy that". Then the problem is not that it is a place for kids, it is that it is just bad. It is a thing Disney understood very well, its classics may look like they are for kids, but they are actually enjoyable by everyone, and it is a big reason for their success. As for art museums, the problem is that they are usually just exhibitions, and to be honest, that's boring, especially if you are a kid. That's unlike a science museum where they actually try to teach you science. It is only interesting if you are already well into that kind of art, and most kids aren't (yet?). History museums are kind of a middle ground as they can do the double duty of teaching history (mostly for kids) and showing off artefacts to people who are already into that (mostly for grownups).

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> science museums being places for kids is a good thing. The are the ones who benefit the most I'm not sure how you can look at the current state of scientific literacy in America and conclude this. > art museums, the problem is that they are usually just exhibitions, and to be honest, that's boring, especially if you are a kid There are historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art that make it beautiful beyond the aesthetic.
- bluGill 1y ago
  > There are historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art that make it beautiful beyond the aesthetic. Those are in the eye of the beholder though. In many cases they are things I still don't care about after learning about them. An ugly painting doesn't become any more interesting to me when I learn about the struggles the artist went through - a lot of people do find it more interesting - good for them, but it isn't for me. (then again the paintings I'm thinking of most people thought were nice even before they learned about the artist...)

Telemakhos 1y ago

There's an interactive Leondardo da Vinci museum in Firenze that does a good job of appealing to both. It's full of kids, because it's interactive, but you could fill it with adults just as easily.

geye1234 1y ago

I don't remember the big Kensington museums being like that when I was a kid. There was a kids' section or two, but the rest was clearly for adults (and has stuck in my memory just as much, if not more than, the kids' sections). Seeing the real Apollo 10 (I don't remember which module) sticks very clearly in my memory. I also rode on a "heritage" train recently, and what struck me the most was that the interior decor of the passenger cars looked as though it had been designed for and by grown-ups.

floren 1y ago
> Seeing the real Apollo 10 (I don't remember which module) sticks very clearly in my memory. The only part that made it back to Earth was the Command Module, so if you saw something from the actual Apollo 10 mission, it was the CM.
- geye1234 1y ago
  Yep, makes sense, and looks like they still have it: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co40509/apollo-10-command-module-call-sign-charlie-brown https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co40509...
graemep 1y ago
I have taken my kids to them at various ages (from five upwards). I think lots for both adults and children. The National Gallery used to do great guided tours for kids, explaining paintings in a fun way.
rerdavies 1y ago
The blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling of the Museum of Natural History left an indelible impression in my mind when I was six. I hope it's still there.

kkylin 1y ago

Quite agree with the sentiment, and the presentation of science to the public in general. However, that probably also reflects a rather accurate assessment of scientific literacy in the general population on the part of planners. Anyway, among US museums of natural history & science, a prominent exception is the AMNH in NYC: yes there are things for kids, but also things for "grownups". After dozens of visits I still learn something new every time.

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ginko 1y ago

You should check out the Deutsches Museum if you're in Munich sometime.

jimbokun 1y ago

You're right. Kids should be able to enjoy art, too!

michael1999 1y ago

If you ever get a chance, the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow has a permanent display of some of Lord Kevlin's instruments. You can look at the actual tools used to characterize the volt, the amp, and the electro-static forces. https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=16534&catType=C&referrer=/results&q=kelvin https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=16534&catTyp...

lnx01 1y ago

The most fun I've ever had in a museum was at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. The exhibits are interactive, educational, fun... mostly for kids... I was 33 years old... I'd love to go back and do it all again.

kccqzy 1y ago

I didn't understand art as a kid. You need experience, culture, history, and often at least a cursory understanding of religion to understand art. Art is an expression by the artist. It is necessary to understand the milieu of the artist first. Science is universal. It crosses time and language barriers. The underlying physical principles are immutable. Kids can be expected to understand science museum exhibits after a few minutes of explanation. You can't explain the historical and social context behind a painting in just a few minutes to a kid.

UtopiaPunk 1y ago

I've seen a few different science museums and the like have a special day of the week where they stay open later and are 21+. Booze is involved. I've never been, but it seems like it could be a fun time.

IAmBroom 1y ago

Pittsburgh's Science Center has over-21 events all the time. They're very popular.

tgbugs 1y ago

One science museum that is not like that is the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin, at least when I was there (shudder) about a decade ago. It was a museum that was designed for parents to explain to children. The written material for any given piece in an exhibit went into sufficient detail and successive sections of writing would build on each other without necessarily requiring that the previous section had been read. Back then the museum had an exhibition on the longitude problem and time keeping, precision, drift, etc. that walked you through the development of increasingly accurate chronometers, the practical reasons why, etc. It was an absolute masterwork exhibit, and it expected the adults to be actively engaged with helping digest the material with the kids.

Aeolun 1y ago

Nothing about a science museum filled with kids precludes you from playing with the exhibits yourself.

necovek 1y ago
It is really tough to queue up along with kids who are not letting go of any interactive exhibit easily — and similarly tough to explore it well while there are kids waiting behind you. So in theory you are right, in practice there is a lot of social pressure to bear to do it. The best is if you can go in outside peak hours (take day off work etc).

efskap 1y ago

I mean as a kid, zoos are "wow cool, animals :)", while as an adult, you realize that they're basically prisons profiting off animal exploitation for entertainment

1718627440 1y ago
> they're basically prisons Sure, a zoo can never simulate reality exactly, but they come pretty close now-a-days. Animals have several square kilometers to run and it's crazy how they are able to simulate different climates. A lot of animals now only exist in zoos since the natural environment now got inhabitable.