Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens
No rules - even running is implicitly allowed
Reverse parallax exhibit - right and left eye switched to make the near look far and vice versa
Exhibits must be able to misbehave/used in intended ways
If an exhibit breaks, it's the centers fault, not the visitors
Staff should care that people are having a good time. Other museums staff/guards prevent that
Ties and canes should be all purpose tools
Sightseeing is the basis for all discovery - individual sights combine to form patterns which constitute a simple form of understanding
The journey is part of the destination, without it, there is no opportunity to explore unexpected and pleasant nooks along the way
Nothing is hidden - people shouldn't leave with the implied feeling that someone else is clever
Despite popular opinion to the contrary, the public is not irresponsible, uninterested or unreachable
Tie things down => they get stolen; don't tie them down => they float throughout the center, but don't leave
"No one flunks a museum”
Bare girders and concrete walls made it easier for people to Greek there was nothing they couldn't touch or do
Playfulness allows visitors to make genuine discoveries unlike those made by students of the ”discovery method” where they can only ”discovery” what the teacher had in mind
Often playing around leads to a grey-brown mess that should be thrown out to start playing around in some other way, but occasionally something incredibly wonderful happens. We pay research physicists and exhibit builders to play like this
”It must require an inordinate amount of self-discipline for adults to remain playful in their work”
A cultivated aesthetic sense is a central to decent behavior as it is to art
”To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than it shall run noiselessly”
Telling teachers how to use materials that someone else developed/prepared does not make good teachers.
Having multiple examples of the same phenomenon in slightly different ways helps promote understanding
Science Center must be as enticing and useful for casual visitors as for serious students, adults as well as children
Explaining science and technology without props is like explaining swimming without letting them near water.
Physics is grubby and it shouldn't be pretty and under glass.
Visitors should learn that experiments break and fail and you've got to fix them
Shops should be part of the museum because that is the way that physics is done: things break, you fix them, you improve them.
Everything is filtered through our perception so focusing on that allows discussion of topics like physics, neurophysiology, chemistry, biology and technology
Exhibits are always changing and full of surprise. If they look perpetually unfinished, that is the nature of science
Glue is mysterious. Use screws so people can see
”If one writes down a list of all the things schools are currently asked to do, one can only react by throwing up one's hands in despair”
To Frank, it would have been pointless to build a science museum that didn't include art
Historically, places that respected the arts and based decisions on aesthetics were also place where ”better things happened”
An idea you discover yourself is one you want to tell others about over and over again
Frank like teenage Explainers to offer explanations even if they were a little off the mark. They experienced joy and, just as in science, the ”right answer” wasn't a important add the process of thinking things through
Science becomes the invisible underpinnings that shape perception, critical to culture, not just vocation
The survival of the world may well depend on the extent to which scientists reclaim their role as citizens
Max Otto argues that it's perfectly appropriate to extend scientific thinking into the social realm
if we could understand people as well as we understand lightning, perhaps the fear and danger could be brought under control
Where learning is not revered, little new is learned
Teaching to tests is harmful because it doesn't allow for the asking of real questions and therefore produces no new knowledge
Exploratorium is an anarchy and Frank was the anarch
The feel of a place emerges from decisions about many details. The view is that an executive shouldn't pay attention to all these details, but that doesn't work in art, science or management
At the Exploratorium and Ernest Rutherford's lab, people were expected to find what they wanted to do, and then do it. This system didn't encourage creativity as much as require it.
With discovery learning, the ”right” answer is less important than an authentic experience
As long as people can invent something to do with the exhibits, they don't feel they have to break them
Learning must be a choice. Taking away distractions means students are not allow to decide whether or not to listen and learning decreases
Exhibits stay as long as the staff don't get bored with them
Science centers are about developing intuition and aesthetics rather than conveying hard facts
Science Centers are about democratizing science