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| Franklin Institue |
We remember going to the Franklin Institute when our girls were in Junior High. At the time, it was the one of the first museums to have interactive displays (first time we had seen computers used in a museum). We were interested in how the museum is today. They still rate as one of the best museums to bring your children. We started at the heart exhibit: they had a walk through heart, an exhibit that let you hear how fast hearts beat in different animals (a whale beats at 20 beats/min and a bird at 400 to 600). Then we watched the dissection of a goat heart, which is very similar to a human heart in size. The electrical activity in the brain was represented thus:
The section on electricity had comparison of the different types of
light bulb, you could turn a crank to see how much effort it took to light an
incandescent, LCD, and LED lights (quite impressive how little cranking it took
to brightly light an LED). The section on machines was fascinating, showing you
how various levers and configurations would translate one type of motion
(circular motion to run your wind shield wipers) to another or how you gained
leverage or moderated speed by the type of gears used. These types of
demonstrations continued in different subject areas: trains, airplanes, the
body, the brain, etc. It was fun to see a bunch of teen-age boys experimenting
with the shape of wings or trying to create a helicopter.
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