Letter from Boston The Museum of Science By MASAKO YAMADA	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
科学博物館 ボストンの科学博物館では、見学に来る学校の生徒たちのために、体験型プログラムがいくつも用意されています。大型スクリーンの映画館やプラネタリウム、幹線道路の建設工事の様子を原寸大で再現した模型などもあり、大人でも十分に楽しむことができます。この博物館の魅力について、雅子さんがレポートします。

The Boston Museum of Science (MOS) is the sort of place where big, yellow school buses come from miles around to offer young schoolchildren a day of hands-on science education. Almost all of the exhibits have some kind of interactive element to them, and one can easily tell that the displays are designed for children because most of them are a bit too low for adults to use comfortably.

The programs at the MOS are carefully designed by scientists and teachers, and there is even a sleepover program where students stay at the museum for a fun night of learning.

In spite of the focus on children's education, there is a lot of stuff for adults to do. There is a large-screen movie theater and a planetarium, and it seems that many adults visit these attractions at night, after most kids are gone. I prefer to walk around the main exhibit halls. I have gone to the MOS several times in the past month or two and I still haven't seen all of the interesting exhibits.

The museum covers an astonishing range of topics. The pure mathematics hall looks as if it hasn't been remodeled since the '60s. The topics are very advanced — including differential calculus, topology and probability theory — but the displays are attractive to the eye regardless of whether or not the viewer understands the theory.

One of the most modern exhibits is a reproduction of the "Big Dig," a massive highway construction project that is currently taking place in Boston. Not only are there life-size models of vehicles and construction scenes, there is even a fake elevator in which people can take a trip below street level (by watching a movie).

I personally like the low-tech (and physically crumbling) exhibits that demonstrate the basic principles behind airplane flight, siphons, lenses, ocean waves and other physical phenomena, and it makes me happy to see kids scrambling to try all of them. However, for more savvy children, there is also a fully equipped computer lab where they can edit digital photos of themselves and print them out on the laser printer.

There are also temporary events that are sponsored by outside organizations and stay for only a day or two. One day, some amateur astronomers set up their telescopes outside so visitors could look at sunspots and prominences of the sun. On another day, there was a multimedia concert where budding composers and visual artists poured out their souls using the latest technology.

The museum staff members also conduct live demonstrations and workshops for large audiences. My boyfriend and I were walking past the optical illusion display when we saw an acquaintance of his, a staff member, coming out of the auditorium. Although the show he had been conducting was already over, he showed us some of the optical illusions used in the demonstration. He also invited us to the see the lightning show that he was narrating.

The lightning show is a very popular feature at the MOS. It is held in a dark room dominated by two towering pillars. These pillars are the original Van de Graaff generators used by scientists at MIT. The lightning that is created is very bright and loud. The buzzing flashes are not an optical illusion. They are real electric sparks, and they fly around the room very powerfully.

The audience is protected by wire mesh that transmits any extra sparks to the ground. The narrator sits in a wire cage and talks about the principles, and the dangers, of lightning. Thanks to our friend, we were able to go underneath the generator to check out the wiring. Sure enough, it looked like a piece of real scientific equipment.

That's what I like about the museum: The displays are fun and the explanations are short, but the science at the core is genuine.

Shukan ST: July 2, 1999

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