Favorite Object: Please Touch Museum

(photo from www.myphillyalive.com)

Space Station exhibit in Flight Fantasy 

This week's visit to the Please Touch Museum was a lot of fun and I am still impressed by the larger than life set and exhibit design that was put in to this beautiful building. I remember going to the Please Touch Museum as a child with my younger brother, and thinking it was fun but enjoying the Franklin Institute more because it felt bigger and more exciting to me and at the time the Franklin was more age appropriate for me. I feel like if I had experienced this Please Touch Museum as a child, the colorful murals and large trees and cloud installations and the ability to feel as though you are always stepping into a new place every time you change areas would have captivated me. It is a really exciting environment to be in. As an adult, learning about the history and architecture of Memorial Hall is also fascinating to me. I recently did a research paper on the Please Touch Museum's collections and how it meets its audiences. I find the museum does a great job of creating their exhibits to be for children 7 and under, their target audience they defined, and also providing tours and the Centennial Exhibit for the accompanying adults who want to know more about the history. During my visit in the summer, myself and the adults I was with wanted to know more about the building and the little things around the museum, such as plaques on the wall in the main lobby telling you that it’s painted in period colors, and the more text rich Centennial Exhibit answered our need to know more about the building. 

Variables available for rocket launching

That aside, my favorite area in the museum is the Flight Fantasy play area. I think it’s the scientist in me because the area's interactives are based on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) activities. The futuristic blue and neon colors are so bright and transport you to space. A lot of the exhibits provide a lot of different variables to try and manipulate to learn from. My favorite “object” or interactive is the rocket building activity in the Space Station room. The exhibit is based on building a rocket and launching it using air cannon. Children can choose different shapes and sizes to experiment with to see what flies the best. Again, I appreciate the use of variables to encourage inquiry based learning. The interactive is futuristic looking and is designed to look like a space launch pad and the center piece looks like a giant rocket. 

Solar System stained glass- want!!

The Space Station room is large and open feeling with large windows with solar system themed stained glass on the windows and a giant solar system displayed from the ceiling. Where can I get these things for my future house one day? I love the feeling of the space and the room and it evokes imagination and wonder about space. As a child I was a part of a local astronomy club and I did a lot of stargazing with our telescope. Astronomy was one of my first interests in science and what lead me to a teaching certificate in Earth and Space Science. The importance of getting children of all ages interested in science is something I understand and appreciate, hence why I like this area and exhibit so much.

The Flight Fantasy Area is the newest play area at the Please Touch Museum and was opened in October 2010.

Other exhibits in the Space Station area include a blue screen for visitors to dress up and see themselves in space, and a cloud hopping interactive. This news clip provides a great demonstration of the rocket launching interactive and blue screen.  

The rocket building interactive can lead to children wanting to explore fields in engineering and astronomy to enrich their exploration. The entire space can help create an interest in science and technology in both young and old audiences. For me personally to understand the object better, either a greater background in rocket engineering and projectile motion or a greater knowledge of early childhood fine motor skills development and how they interpret STEM concepts and what the lasting impression of this interactive has on them.

Those who would not be interested in this object could be those with little interest in space and children with a brief attention span who don't first get the idea of trying lots of variations of rockets, unless a parent encourages it, or parents who also don't try the variables and believe it’s a once and done activity. Opposing views would believe that it is meant to be just a try it once and move on and miss the concept of exploration with all the different sized rockets and shapes. 

Other experiences that would engage the visitor could be stomp rockets or catapults to learn about projectile motion. Stomp rockets are a great activity to be made at home and can be done with children of all ages including high school students and kindergartners.