A museum exhibit takes a very close look at the industry
by Keith Miller |
WHEN PEOPLE SPEND A DAY AT AN AMUSEMENT PARK, they revel in the flood of sensations that all the rides and attractions let loose on their senses. But how much do park guests really know about the forces producing these wonderful feelings or the physics behind them? Teaching park goers, especially kids, about the science behind the sensations they experience at parks is the inspiration behind an exhibition that’s been traveling to museums around the United States.
The “Amusement Park Science” exhibit came out of the TEAMS Collaborative (Traveling Exhibitions At Museums of Science), which was formed through a grant from National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1995. The idea behind the grant was to allow small and medium-sized museums to produce unique exhibitions that they normally couldn’t afford. These exhibitions would then travel to TEAMS sister museums at no charge. When the travel schedule is completed, the museum that developed a particular exhibition could then lease it to other facilities around the country.
When the Discovery Center Museum in Rockford, Illinois, embarked on creating its exhibit, “we thought about what excited us and interested us, and how we might use those things to explain science concepts to children,” says Ann Marie Walker, marketing manager for the museum. It was Discovery Center’s executive director, Sarah Wolf, who guided the conceptualization toward amusement parks and took her inspiration from Chicago-area high school teacher Chris Chiaverina.
“He took high school students to [Six Flags] Great America on field trips, and they learned physics from the rides and the experiments they did,” Wolf says. “I saw Chris in action, later hired him to conduct lots of teacher workshops here, and then talked with him about the idea of an exhibition on amusement park science. He helped us decide which laws of physics to concentrate on and how to illustrate those in exhibits.”
Though amusement parks were appealing as an exhibit topic, the museum had other considerations to satisfy. “Amusement parks are full of science and physics, but we had to make sure that there were ways to re-create those things and to explain the science behind them to kids,” notes Walker.
Extensive Development
When the Discovery Center settled upon amusement park science, there was a tremendous amount of work to do, and development of the exhibit was a very long process. A key member of the exhibition’s development team was Bruce Quast, the museum’s exhibits director. “Discovery Center assembled an elite group of advisers that included not only outstanding and innovative science educators, but also engineers, artists, exhibit developers, and a ride designer,” says Quast. “This group, along with our staff, conducted many months of research and evaluation in developing the exhibit content, labels, and supporting educational materials.”
Quast says this process involved everything from watching TV programs on amusement parks to conducting research in books and on the Internet. The museum team corresponded with many parks around the country to secure information, photographs, and video footage. They also interviewed visitors about their memories of amusement parks. But Quast notes, “Our efforts were directed toward creating a nostalgic amusement park and carnival atmosphere rather than modeling the exhibition after any particular parks.”
The next step for the museum in the creation of any exhibit is to test their ideas. “We prototype them on our museum floor out of something like cardboard, then we videotape visitors using them so we can see how they use them and how to make them better,” says Walker. “We also prototype the signage so we can test whether they understand it and whether they can remember what they read, and we give visitors questionnaires about the exhibit.”
After the prototypes were evaluated, the final exhibit displays were created. Walker says because the exhibition was created using NSF funding, it had to have a solid educational component. “Amusement Park Science” targets elementary and middle school kids, and pre- and post-visit materials were developed and sent to teachers to help them prepare for field trips. According to Quast, the “Amusement Park Science” displays cover several different scientific principles, including Newton’s Laws, acceleration, force, friction, potential and kinetic energy, and ride design and safety.
“The [displays explore] the basics—the physics of rides and simple machines, like pulleys, levers, etc.,” says Walker. “We give [kids] materials they can take home to explore the concept of simple machines.”
She points to “Momentum Machine,” for instance. Visitors stand on its rotating base, grab onto a pole, push off with a foot on the ground, and spin on the rotating base. If they hold their bodies close to the pole, they spin faster; if they stand at arm’s length from the pole, they spin slower. Some of the other exhibits in the “Amusement Park Science” exhibition include “Create-A-Coaster,” “Bump-O-Ramma,” “K’Nex Activity Area,” and “Wild Rides Video Kiosk.” Walker maintains it would be hard to choose a guest favorite, but says, “Everybody seems to like the ‘Momentum Machine’ because it’s very tactile, very interactive. We specifically tried to stay away from computer monitors and kiosks and go with things they can climb on and play with.”
To help market the exhibition, the Discovery Center created an animated character named Newt to serve as a sort of mascot. “This little guy, Newt, was named by his parents after Sir Isaac Newton, the father of physics,” says Walker. Newt is pictured in marketing materials engaged in all sorts of different activities, like riding roller coasters, and helps visitors learn about the laws of physics.
Hitting the Road
Once work on the exhibit was done, the Discovery Center Museum had to duplicate the entire exhibition. Why? In addition to the exhibit created by a museum for its own display purposes, under the NSF TEAM Collaborative funding there needed to be an identical traveling exhibit that could be transported to sister museums. Also, exhibitor, marketing, and educational materials had to be created to accompany the exhibit so the sister museums would know all of the details of what they were getting.
 The exhibit has traveled to science museums such as the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York, the Science Factory in Eugene, Oregon, and the Catawba Science Center in Hickory, North Carolina; to children’s museums like the Children’s Science Explorium in Boca Raton, Florida, and the Young at Art Children’s Museum in Davie, Florida; and to exploration and discovery museums including the Imaginarium in Anchorage, Alaska, and the Insights Museum in El Paso, Texas.
The traveling exhibit has completed its touring phase to sister museums in the NSF TEAM Collaborative, and now the Discover Center Museum is leasing it out. Currently, it is on display at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The total cost of the “Amusement Park Science” exhibition is unknown; Walker says it’s hard to calculate because the grant was shared by several museums over several years, and other museums developed their own exhibitions. But the exhibition’s attendance is no mystery, and Walker puts the number of visitors who have seen “Amusement Park Science” in the hundreds of thousands.
The museum has gauged customer visitor reaction to the exhibit since the very beginning. “We start doing that as early as the prototype phase,” Walker says. “We see what interests them and what doesn’t, and another good gauge is how long they stayed with it.” She says visitor response to “Amusement Park Science” has been very positive, adding, “We must have done something right because we still have it up!”
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