Re: wandering around Washington

From: OM (om_at_our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research_facility.org)
Date: 11/18/04 

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:37:57 -0600

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:16:40 GMT, henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

>Even galleries that are explicitly meant to be educational, like "How
>Things Fly", are rather poorly explained. Someone who went there truly
>wanting to learn would go away disappointed and frustrated. Lots of
>interactive demos for the kids to play with, but the explanations are
>skimpy and poorly written, and sometimes the demo itself is confusing;
>clearly this stuff wasn't tested on real kids and parents.

...Henry, something both I and Brother Dim have noted during our
various trips to the museums over the years is that the amount of
information and the complexity of the content and the delivery appears
to be dependent upon whether or not the beancounters for the facility
in question have their priorities straight on what's important when it
comes to funding exhibits. Quite a few facilities are told by their
purseholders that they've already spent too much getting the exhibits
in the first place, and should put up a simple sign and let the
exhibits "speak for themselves", and that anyone wanting more
information should "quit being lazy and go read a book".

Then again, we're talking about the NASM, which as we all know has had
problems with their priorities from time to time. It's probable that
they spent too much money still trying to convince suckers that
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary and nothing more than a
masturbation of our National Ego...

                                OM 

-- 
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