The Franklin Insitute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I don't remember my first visit to the Franklin Institute; I believe it must have been on some visit to Philadelphia when I was very young; all I remember was walking through the heart. Later, however, we moved to the Philadelphia area, and were regular visitors. For two summers I worked in the Franklin Institute Research Labs in the building next door, and even more important to me than my paycheck was the ID badge that allowed me to take the tunnel between the buildings and spend most of my lunch hours in the museum.
After he retired, my dad became a Franklin Institute volunteer, and it was natural for him to take his grandchildren there when they came to visit. By that time, the museum had grown an addition, with new exhibits that made it look like any modern science museum, but the kids' favorite, and my own, was the old building, with its greater educational content and more detailed, written information with each exhibit. Now Dad's grandchildren have children of their own, and on our recent visit to Philadelphia we all looked forward to watching them delight in our old favorites.
The great-grandkids were happy enough, but the rest of us were somewhat disappointed. To our delight, the heart is still there, as is the train that Dad used to drive as one of his docent duties (it's easier to keep a 350-ton locomotive than to get rid of one) but the "new building" style has now infected the old building, too. Many of our favorite exhibits are gone, replaced by displays designed for shorter attention spans and lesser literacy. The math room that had kept our kids entranced for hours was nowhere to be found, and when I finally asked a docent, "Excuse me, it's been a long time since I was here last, and I can't find the math room," he replied, "It has been a long time since you've visited; they took that out years ago."
It took a bit of effort, but we did find Newton's Dream, the kinetic sculpture that so entranced Heather as a child. It's in a different place now, and has been cut down in size, but that didn't stop the children from following it with the same fascination. Also riveting was Der Lauf der Dinge, a Swiss-made movie of a 30-minute Rube Goldberg setup with lots of pyrotechnics and impressive chemical reactions. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you, too, can see this amazing performance, albeit broken into three segments. (Here are the links as well, since I note that embedded videos don't always show up in feedreaders: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Lest I be seen as a totally hopeless conservative who never likes anything new, the museum's newest exhibit, Amazing Machine, is also excellent, and we could have spent much longer playing with its cams, gears, pulley, and linkages had we not been nearing the end of our visit. (Heather: That's what I want for Christmas. You can turn a mechanical engineer into a joyful homemaker, but the engineer is still there.)
The American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York
On my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History I was probably about as young as when I first encountered the Franklin Institute, but in this case nearly half a century elapsed between visits. The AMNA, however, shows more respect for its old exhibits, and the wonderful dioramas that are all I remember from my first visit are still featured, with all their high information content and long descriptions to read. I could easily have spent the entire day among them. Porter found one, the African buffalo, that was sponsored by George Eastman, and remarked, "He sponsored the Buffalo because there is no animal named Rochester, but he should have sponsored the Kodiak bear." Yes, we're still married; I happen to like that kind of humor.
The museum has several new exhibits as well as the old, most of which were quite good. There was a bit of a "politically correct" feel in a few places, but it was not unbearable, and in general the educational value and written descriptions were sufficient. Despite my primary concern for material to read, I am also particularly sensitive to the layout of displays—color, font, background, use and placement of images and other media—and this, too, the AMNH exhibits did well.
One disappointment was the Hall of Minerals, chiefly because whoever is responsible for lighting must have been on vacation. For several months. It was dark. At first I thought the gloom was meant to provide contrast to the brilliance of the minerals and gems, but many of the lights that should have been highlighting the rocks were also out. We very nearly missed the famous Star of India because it was in the dark.
In addition to the old favorites, we signed up for several special exhibits and shows. Traveling the Silk Road was disappointing, but only because I had expected the most from it. It was well done, but crowded, with not as much information as I had hoped and not enough time in the crowd to do justice to what was there. The best part was the section on silk making and sericulture.
I believe Journey to the Stars was a better-than-average planetarium show (more information, less mindless entertainment), but unfortunately I responded the way I always do when faced with a movie or movie-like substance in a dark room, awakening only at the end.
The Butterfly Conservatory was interesting, though I think I've seen more fluttering in the butterfly garden at our own Leu Gardens.
Frogs: A Chorus of Colors was great; Heather would have loved it. Except the part where we learned about the devastation being wrought by the chytrid fungus.
The American Museum of Natural History is well worth visiting more often than every 50 years. The dioramas alone are a homeschooler's paradise.Where Bd [Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis] thrives, generally in moist cool habitats, 50% of amphibian species and 80% of individuals can be expected to disappear within one year.... Currently it cannot be stopped in the wild and a minority of species seem able to survive with a Bd infection as larvae or as adults and these animals likely serve as a reservoir and vectors for future outbreaks. Notable among resistant species are worldwide invasive pest species including marine toads, American bullfrogs and African clawed frogs.
