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TRADITIONALLY, museums are for quiet, hands-off learning, certainly not places structured around the needs of children who like to run, touch, laugh out loud and let their curiosity carry them away.
Given the choice, children would learn by doing - not by reading or merely watching. And this weekend, they'll get the chance to explore, handle and manipulate every exhibit when the doors open at the New York Hall of Science.
It's a scientific playground for adults and children on the site of the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Built on the premise that science is fun and interesting, each of the displays - about 90 so far - is designed to help explain such difficult concepts as the relationship between color, light and perception, as well as feedback systems and quantum physics.
This museum differs greatly from an art museum. For starters, art museums don't hire canvas makers, frame makers, landscape architects, painters, etc. At the Hall of Science, there is a machine shop with more than a dozen people who create the concepts and then buy the paint and parts and build the exhibits. (The bulk of the exhibits, however, were commissioned by IBM Corp. and built by San Francisco's Exploratorium.)
Staff members called explainers are stationed at various locations throughout the museum. It is their job to chat with the patrons and help answer any questions. Unlike the quiet guards at the Met, these people are clearly having fun.
Everyone seems to agree with this goal of science as fun. During the first few minutes of watching children romp and roam and touch...