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| both science and art and suggests that neither is connected with nature. In fact, most large book stores have separate sections labeled Science, Art, and Nature. The works of artists and the didactic demonstrations of scientists and engineers combine to do more than show the sights. They alter, each in a characteristic mode, the way in which individuals perceive both their past and future experiences, and they make people aware of aspects of their surroundings that they have either learned to ignore or never been shown how to see. PLAY The Exploratorium is not designed to glorify anything. We have not built exhibits whose primary message is, “Wasn’t somebody else clever,” or “hasn’t someone done a great service to mankind and the American way of life.” Nor do we tell people what they are supposed to get out of a particular exhibit or make them feel silly or stupid because they enjoyed it in a way that was perhaps not intended. In this sense the Exploratorium is a playful place, and people are aware that they are not being pushed around. Our one firm rule prohibits riding a bicycle among the exhibits. A large part of the play of children involves using common physical and cultural components of society in a context that is divorced from its primary purpose. It is through such inventive and repetitive play that they learn to feel at home with the world. In this fashion, our exhibits are also playful. A large screen, designed to show the effect of retinal disparity using red and green shadows, becomes an area for shadow dancing and pantomime. A harp, which illustrates a photo-feedback process and sings in the light, as an aeolean harp sings in the wind, becomes a device for producing rhythmic modulations by hand waving. A rotating turntable, which illustrates the conservation of angular momentum, becomes a way of learning about dizziness. Through such play, the visitors make genuine discoveries, and we avoid the too frequent shortcoming of the so called | “discovery method” of teaching where students are allowed to “discover” only what the instructor had in mind. In exhibits that are obviously intended for play, exhibits that themselves use props divorced from their original context, all manner of lovely things are discoverable, even by the people who invent them. The flexibility that allows exhibits to be used for play carries with it an additional pedagogical advantage. Science museum demonstrations that do only what they are supposed to do when one pushes the button are, although common, nevertheless quite unsatisfactory. Only a limited amount of understanding comes from watching something behave; one must also watch what happens as one varies the parameters that alter the behavior. For example, one learns less optics by focusing a projector than by forming images with a hand-held lens, and one learns more from a gyroscope that has two wheels which can be spun in opposite directions than from a motor driven version. The response of a resonant system to a fixed driving frequency teaches less than the response to a variable frequency. Flexible features, built in to permit and encourage playfulness, are vital for education. In fact, in our rapidly changing culture, adults probably require play as much as children do in order to cope with and adapt to these incessant qualitative changes. PERCEPTION The theme of human sensory perception has provided a guiding over-all rationale for our planning of the Exploratorium. This choice of theme has proved fortunate for many reasons. The study of perception is extraordinarily fascinating both to the public and to our staff. It is currently a very lively field as well as one that is young enough that the forefront of the science remains accessible to a wide audience. Perceptual phenomena intrigue children as well as adults and are impressive to both lay and professional people. They lend themselves to demonstrations that are clean and logical as | ||