Wendy Pollock

Long before the iPhone came on the scene, Apple Computer worked with the Lawrence Hall of Science to produce an exhibition that featured "45 of the best current computer artworks." Art by Computer went on to tour the United States through ASTC,...

Invention and innovation are themes of perennial interest among science centers and technology museums. This exhibition presented a dozen inventions, drawing on the classic American narrative of the small-scale inventor whose good idea leads to...

"Over the past decade" (we wrote in 1984), "videograms and robots, word processors and sonograms have entered into our daily vocabulary and provided the basis for countless news stories. All result from a technological achievement of major dimensions:...

Looking at the Light was a traveling exhibition with a big mission: to demonstrate the power of hands-on exhibits and (as we said in the final report) "to facilitate sharing of the Exploratorium's expertise and vision." At the time the project was...

The exhibition looked at the science behind global climate change—how people are changing the atmosphere, what effects these changes may have on climate and on people, and what might be done to mitigate it. Major subthemes/areas: Greenhouse Earth—...

The exhibition introduced CB radio at a time when it was still a new phenomenon, using hands-on exhibits. Included were four functioning CB units visitors could use to talk with each other and two computers where they could learn about regulation of...

This exhibition gave visitors a chance to examine their own eyes more closely and to learn about tools used by eye care specialists. A section on the aging eye examined both normal changes and major eye diseases most commonly associated with old age....

Wild Music explores evidence for the biological origins of music through highly interactive exhibits and exceptional sound experiences—and in the process, expands our understandings of what makes music.

This is one of those simple ideas that starts with an experience most children have had: trying to walk really quietly. It adds a note of challenge and competition and makes its point quickly. Part of a collection called Listen, which was developed...

The Hull-House Museum, in its newly renovated space on Chicago's Halsted Street, has fully embraced the role of the museum in service to society. In the spirit of Jane Addams, founder of the settlement house that once was located here, this...

Midcoast Maine is beautiful even in its uncultivated state, with its granite cliffs, rugosa roses, and fragrant balsam firs. The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens make the most of their location, not far from Boothbay - and the Garden of the Five Senses,...

One of the lesser-known roles of the U.S. Congress is operating the U.S. Botanic Garden, located just down the hill from the Capitol Building. When I visited the other day in search of a mid-winter infusion of green, I encountered abundant poinsettias...

No one who's seen the Sun Painting could ever forget it. Bob Miller created this luminous exhibit during the Exploratorium's early years. A heliostat on the roof, far overhead, tracks the sun's movement and reflects the sunlight off a mirror down into...

The spectacular view down into the Grand Hall with its totem poles and house fronts is the iconic experience at Ottawa's Museum of Civilization/Musee des Civilisations. What the photographs don't convey is how it feels to come upon the hall as you move...

This compelling area of the Race exhibition clearly derives its authenticity from the insights and involvement of the high school students with whom it was developed - and the invitation to visitors to contribute their own reflections. The form of the...

I saw this map at the Chicago Botanic Garden last fall. It's pleasing to look at and touch. But I think words could add to its interest and give a sighted member of a group something to read aloud...

Hull-House Museum in Chicago opened this urban farm three years ago and now sponsors a weekly farmers market just across Halsted Street from the old settlement house, founded by Jane Addams. Last week...

An earlier question asked whether there's any evidence about the effectiveness of different kinds of labels. Here's a link to an article by Stephen Bitgood about labels and the role of attention...

Kate McGroarty, selected from more than 1,500 contestants to spend a month at the Museum of Science and Industry (with a diorama-like cube as home), has been reporting nightly via YouTube. She gets...

Here's a resource from the Wellcome Trust, created in celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday last year: an interactive and film in which David Attenborough recaps evolution in less than 7 minutes. Thanks...

The Fall 2011 issue of the journal Children, Youth, and Environments will explore multi-disciplinary perspectives on the role of play in science learning with a focus on out-of-school spaces designed...

In this National Air and Space Museum video from the mid-70s, Julia Child (using a butcher knife as pointer) cooks up the building blocks of life in her own kitchen (signing off with her usual"bon appetit...

Alan Friedman writes today on the ISEN-ASTC list about Japan's unfolding nuclear crisis: "Many science centers have exhibitions on energy. A few centers include nuclear energy, with greater or lesser...

Richard and Masako Murakami talk about how volunteering at the Japanese American National Museum in LA has changed their lives (including helping them meet each other). Their story, recorded by StoryCorps...

Jeri Robinson reflects on the Boston Children's Museum's pioneering development of playspaces for very young children. "Just do something that's right for families and kids...Copy this, create something...

What is it about sleeping in a museum? Photographer Thom Trauner writes: "On Oct 2nd we've spent a night at the Lentos Museum/Linz, Austria. The Museum was transformed into a hotel. Kind of. White lines...

To find the Wave Organ, you have to walk on past the Exploratorium to the rocky shore of San Francisco Bay. In this 2008 News 10 report, you can listen in - and hear artist Peter Richards talk about...

This multi-part project of the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, North Carolina, won a 2010 award for "special achievement in community engagement" from the American Association of Museums...

A mobile laboratory where publics and planners can"work on inspiring ideas" for the nine cities that will host the lab over the next six years. The first iteration, which opened last week in New York...

Big pegboards are evidently used to create this moire pattern which, the makers say, "expresses symbolic beauty of natural phenomenon such as Komorebi (sunbeams streaming through leaves), Yurameki...