Latest news with #interactiveExhibits
Condé Nast Traveler
10-06-2025
- Condé Nast Traveler
The Best Children's Museums in the US, From San Francisco to St. Louis
While there are several children's museums that have climbing gyms, tot-scaled supermarkets, and STEAM-inspired tinkering labs, what makes an institution really stand out from the pack is its creative play spaces. At the Children's Museum of Eau Claire in Wisconsin, for example, kids scramble up the tongue and slide out the bum of a digestive track-themed indoor playground. Then there are the record-breaking exhibits like the world's largest Triceratops fossil skeleton, a.k.a. Big John, which is on display at the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa, Florida. As for the places that dedicate space to deep dives on unique and important subjects, the Bronzeville Children's Museum in Chicago is the first and only African-American children's museum in the country. (And it goes all in on Black inventors.) What follows are eight of the country's best children's museums—dynamic, sensory-rich spaces that engage and entertain as much as they educate. The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix houses 7,500 instruments from more than 200 countries and territories in its collection. Musical Instrument Museum The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Indiana It doesn't get any bigger than this—literally. Opened in 1925, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis may not be the oldest in the country (that distinction belongs to the Brooklyn Children's Museum, founded in 1899), but it is the world's largest. We're talking five floors of interactive exhibits, 7.5 acres of outdoor sports experiences (including a simulated Indy 500 race course using bicycles in place of cars), a replica International Space Station, an antique carousel, the largest water clock in North America, a 43-foot-tall Chihuly glass sculpture, a kid-friendly food court, and more to see and do than any family could reasonably pack into a day. This powerhouse is next level in every arena: Like many kids' museums, for instance, it has a special zone dedicated to dinosaurs. But this one features a real T. rex skeleton, interactive dig sites, and an open lab where kids can meet working paleontologists and ask them questions about the fossils they are preserving. Other exhibits touch upon youth activism, locomotives, and ancient mysteries of Egypt and China. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis was the launch pad for Disney Jr.'s first-ever Mickey Mouse Clubhouse exhibit but also lands cool exhibitions for tweens and older—like the new 'Afrofuturism in Costume Design' show surveying the work of Academy Award-winning designer Ruth E. Carter (Black Panther, Malcolm X). There's even a 110-foot Ferris wheel parked outside, brought in to celebrate the museum's 100th anniversary. It'll remain on site through November 2, 2025. Where to stay for families in Indianapolis:
ABC News
01-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Questacon's new hands-on exhibition brings back classics from decades past
A school trip to the nation's capital isn't complete without a visit to Questacon. The National Science and Technology Centre on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin has been helping young people engage with science, technology and innovation through interactive exhibits for the past 37 years. With some 500,000 people visiting the national institution each year, there's a lot of memories to be made. Questacon director Jo White has some fond recollections of her own. "It's a very beautiful memory of our two sons coming here. I think we had to go put [extra] money in the parking meter to extend our stay, they just loved it," she said. Ms White credits the Awesome Earth exhibition with inspiring her youngest son's career in science. That nostalgia is what Questacon is hoping to evoke with its latest exhibition, featuring a new take on some old favourites from the past three decades. ZAP! CLANK! POW! uses a colourful comic book theme to link 17 interactive displays centred around electricity, machines and motion. Kids can get hands-on with the displays, including by creating flying machines and lifting their own body weight with pulleys. "It's a bit like a gallery arcade … lots of interactive exhibits, there's beautiful colour and a lovely story, which feels very much like a cartoon script," Ms White said. "I'm hearing there's some lovely dad jokes generally part of it as well." Senior exhibition designer Ella Cameron said the comic book design already appeared to be a hit. "We have actually found during the visitor testing phase that people actually stop and engage a bit longer with the graphic panel," she said. "So people are more likely to take away not just the experience, but read the background behind whatever they're interacting with." She said the entire exhibition had been designed and manufactured in Canberra, at the Ian Potter Foundation Technology Learning Centre. "Where we can, we [design and] build things in-house ... and outsource when we need specialist skills," she said. The new exhibit has been in development for two years, with the project involving a team of about 20 scientists, writers, designers, engineers, welders and joiners. "Even once we have the idea, there is an infinite number of ways that it can look and also an infinite number of ways visitors can interact with it," Ms Cameron said. "We want to make sure that the design is intuitive and safe and also that it is fun." Last year the Australian government department responsible for Questacon was charged after a child's hands allegedly caught fire at the science centre, leaving them with serious injuries. Ms Cameron said safety was always a large part of the design process. "People often engage in things in a way that you wouldn't necessarily assume. You've got to think through all the different scenarios to make sure it is safe," she said. Composed of entirely modular displays, the exhibition is designed to be packed up and showcased in different locations. It will be on show in Canberra until February before travelling around Australia. "We really want to reach as many as we can across Australia with science and technology, and exhibitions like this make it accessible," Ms White said. "It might be the moment that sparks their curiosity in a career in STEM, or at least an interest in science and technology into the future."
