Category: Adventuring

Conducting a Charge from the Plasma Ball to a Florescent Light When we were first putting together displays for Port Discover, LuAnne Pendergraft was regularly correcting us when we referred to it as a children’s science museum. This was not a museum, this was a center. It was an active place, a place where kids…

The NEMO Science Center in Amsterdam was my first opportunity to see science education in another country. NEMO is by far the largest and most unique science center I have ever experienced, with huge interactive displays and a delightful, playful architecture. I was also impressed with how deep much of the material went. There was…

This is by far the best kept secret of all the amazing cultural attractions on the Washington DC mall. If you appreciate knowledge, Enlightenment values, and science, then you MUST spend an afternoon in this room, appreciating every nook and cranny. America’s Founding Father’s were very wise individuals with a strong appreciation for education and…

There are some very cool subway stops in New York. One stop has tiny bronze cartoon-like characters doing comedic thinks like sawing through support columns, others have beautiful tile work, but the 81st street subway stop in New York is the absolute coolest. It has casts of dinosaur bones and tile-work murals of sea life…

The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat. – Jacques Yves Cousteau Blue Whale Balaenoptera musculus You can check out the complete flickr set here.

A sad thought from the AMNH’s website: since many of the environments represented have been exploited or degraded, some dioramas preserve places and animals as they no longer exist. The viewer of a habitat group diorama is able to travel not only across continents, but also, in some cases, through time. Sambar and Swamp Deer…

Shouldn’t the primates exhibit be merged with the Hall of Human Origins? Wouldn’t the recently discovered hobbit, the Alien from Earth, as PBS NOVA calls it, also properly go in both exhibits? Maybe some of the confusion and lack of appreciation for primates comes from people who forget that humans are primates. Orang-utan See the…

Birds are perfect for the lazy-person’s appreciation of nature. Birds come to us. Set up a bird-feeder in your back yard, and they just show up. Then all you have to do is look out your window and figure out what species your seeing. Recognizing bird calls helps as well, here’s a site filled with…

The Smithsonian has an interactive flash family tree of mammals that allows you to zoom in on a species and generate PDF field guides for a set of similar animals. Mountain Goat See the complete flickr set here.

One of the more lovable rodents, the beaver recently returned to New York City, as “Jose” the beaver set up home in the Bronx River: “This is a symbolic moment for our great city,” said Dr. Steven Sanderson, president and CEO of the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society. “New York City is the epitome of…

The atomic physicist Ernest Rutherford famously said that, “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” A glimpse at this cold, sterile hallway, which connects more dynamic museum displays, really lends strong argument for Rutherford view. Sandpipers, Woodcock, Snipe Check out the complete flickr set here

I’ve been struggling for some profound insights concerning this display. I discovered at this display that I prefer dioramas that depict the animal’s natural habitat to just displaying the animal in a glass box. I’ve previously covered the fact that the African continent is big enough to put USA, India, Argentina, Western Europe, and China…