When you ask most people what a museum is, they will probably give you a blank stare, shrug, and mutter something about museums being a place where you walk around and look at stuff. Or paintings. Or something like that.
Unfortunately, much of the public views museums as stuffy, boring and even old fashioned; a place where you must be good and never touch. Fortunately, this prevailing point of view couldn’t be farther from the truth, at least in today’s modern way of educating in arts and sciences.
Museums are fast becoming the cool place to be, especially for today’s youth.
In these days of video games, theme parks and reality shows, museums are looking at, and implementing, creative and inventive ways to attract the public, especially the young, to all that modern day museums now host. Interactive programs can range from a one-day movie making marathon to video games that take you across the depth and breadth of science.
Because people are willing and wanting to become a more active participant in history, art, and technology, the vast interactive programs that are being held throughout museums, world-wide, are attracting a whole new kind of museum-goer. Museums are becoming expert at educating while holding completely engaging interactive programs.
A huge plus in engaging in these kinds of learning activities is that fees for public museums are nominal, and most are actually free. In a world that is in a questionable financial state, a nominal fee for a day of wonderful, entertaining, and educational activities has a definite advantage over an expensive amusement park.
So whether you are going to a zoo (which is a favorite type of “museum”) activity, or learning science and technology at a museum of science, or creating your own art at a beautiful museum for the arts, learning and arts has just become a whole lot more interesting.