Spring 2010
The Science of Fun
At Montshire Museum, everyone learns their lesson the easy way
By Tom Slayton
Photographed by Vyto Starinskas
It is a spring day at the Montshire Museum of Science, and the happy hum of children working at the exhibits — playing, actually — has risen to a near roar. There are kids making huge soap bubbles with a bubble-maker the size of a basketball hoop, kids crawling under an aquarium tank to look up at turtles and fish, kids rolling pennies down a metal "gravity well," kids watching bees enter and leave a see-through beehive to gather honey and pollen.
Outdoors, in Science Park, water splashes from a fountain, flows down a twisting concrete sluiceway, cascades over concrete steps, and bursts in sprays and trickles from other fountains as the children follow the water's currents, wade in its shallow pools and play with its splashing eruptions.
This place doesn't sound like school; there is laughing and lots of excited chatter. But there is real learning going on here, even though the kids think they're just having a great time. That principle is built into the Montshire's way of doing things, and into the way its staff thinks. Fun is part of this museum's agenda.
One of the basic assumptions here is that everyone has an interest in some aspect of science — if you tap into it in the correct way. So there's an egg-drop contest. It tests homemade protective structures, but also includes the ever-present possibility that the egg in question may break — which of course would be gooey fun. There's a paper airplane contest, an "ephemeral zoo" in May that features spotted salamanders and other creatures just waking up in the spring. And in the winter, there's the museum's now-famous igloo-building contest.
In other words, there's something cool happening just about all the time at the Montshire.
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One day last summer, Karl Cunningham, one of the museum's young "explainers," sat waiting outside the Montshire's main entrance as a small group of children approached. Beside him on the bench was an array of animal skulls.
"Hi," said Cunningham as the youngsters gathered around him, quietly eyeing the smooth white configurations of bone. "Want to check out some skulls?"
The kids drew in closer. "Anybody know what skull this is?" Cunningham said, holding up one with large eye sockets and significant curved, white teeth.
"A dinosaur?" one boy suggested tentatively.
When he was told what animal had inhabited the skull, his eyes grew large and round. "That's a dog?" he said in wonderment.
It was. And the little group of children, now completely captivated, began asking questions.
More than 14,000 school children a year come to the Montshire to have that same kind of experience. They come from public schools in Vermont, New Hampshire and elsewhere. And many others come on vacation or on a day trip from home with their parents. Total visitors now exceed 150,000 annually.
Many are repeat visitors, like Margaret Rightmire of Hanover, N.H., who brings her three children — ages 5, 7 and 9 — often. "We go quite frequently, and each time, they learn something new or have some kind of new experience," Rightmire said recently. "They like both the inside and the outside exhibits at the museum."
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The unspoken secret is that the parents who accompany their kids usually have a great time at the Montshire as well. The museum is focused primarily on children under 12, but any inquiring mind can find stimulation. Programs on astronomy, winter tracking and twig identification, historical scientists and interesting places around the world are among the museum's offerings for adults and teachers. The Montshire is one of the campuses of the New England Wildflower Society, and a recently established Woodland Garden helps visitors identify and protect native New England wildflowers and shrubs. It is also an official interpretive site for the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.
There is a rich variety of things to see and do at the Montshire, ranging from the physics of fluids and airflow to botany walks to splashing in the outdoor watercourse and fountains. Visiting exhibits have included photos of birds, hands-on geology and two recent major exhibits on dinosaurs that were guaranteed to get youthful hearts thumping. Even the construction of the building itself is made a part of the curriculum, since its structure, heating ducts and so forth are all visible. The elevator's workings can be seen, and there's an exhibit nearby that invites youngsters to pedal a bicycle to generate electricity and see how much actual energy it takes to raise an elevator one floor. (Hint: it's a LOT.)
"One of the things that's really rewarding is when you see the little lights go on in their brains — when they're really engaged and absorbed," says spokesperson Beth Krusi.
The Montshire aims to ignite the process of discovery. "It's about asking the questions — and discovering the answers together," she says.
Science Park is a perfect example of the Montshire's approach, where floating Ping-Pong balls race by, fountains and falls spurt and splash, and children learn something about the magical properties of water in the process.
It is typical of this thoughtful museum that nature trails that begin near the water exhibits quietly guide visitors to, among other places, the margins of the nearby Connecticut River, a natural expression of the physics of water — and a huge biological storehouse as well. The connection between the water park and the free-flowing river is never stated, but is clear, nonetheless.
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The name of the Montshire Museum subtly refers to a fact of life in the upper Connecticut River Valley: everyday life happens on both sides of the river. And so "Montshire" combines the last syllables of Vermont and New Hampshire. That's appropriate for another reason as well — the museum began its life in New Hampshire and moved across the river to its present location in Norwich, Vermont, after about 15 years.
Founded in 1974 and opened two years later in a former bowling alley on Lyme Road in Hanover, the museum's first displays were the natural history collections of Dartmouth College. It had six diorama cases and some simple interactive exhibits. It quickly grew and began offering outreach programs to area schools on both sides of the river. In 1984, the Montshire purchased its present site — 110 acres along the Connecticut River in Norwich.
Its present state-of-the-art facility is an attractive contemporary building that cost $4 million to build and opened in November 1989. Science Park followed in 2002, after a $4.2-million capital campaign. It has a shimmering, reflective panel on the outside north wall of the museum that shows wind patterns at a glance, and nearby, you can start walking at a model sun and continue along a trail that encompasses all the planets of our solar system. It's about 95 paces from the "sun" to the model of our Earth. ("The only place in our solar system where you can get a drink of water," a sign informs us.) If you are ambitious enough, it's about a 3.2-mile walk out to "Pluto" and back.
Over the years, the Montshire has won numerous awards and grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Science, the U.S. Department of Energy, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and others. In 1995, the Institute of Museum Services gave the Montshire its National Award for Museum Service, and last year, Parents Magazine named it one of the top 25 science centers in the United States.
Those are high honors. Yet even more important to the Montshire is the continuing approval of parents who bring their children back to the museum again and again.
You can tell that by the numbers in the Montshire's budget — more than 80 percent of its annual operating expenses of $2.25 million is what accountants call "earned income." That is, it comes from admission fees, memberships, program fees and the like. And that, of course, indicates a high degree of active public engagement and participation.
But you can also gauge the museum's approval rating by simply visiting the Montshire almost any day and listening — that roar of youthful activity you hear is the sound of children happily engaged in a world of discovery.
If you go:
The Montshire Museum of Science is open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission: $12 for adults, $10 for ages 2-17, free for children younger than 2. The museum is located in Norwich, five miles north of White River Junction, adjacent to Interstate 91, exit 13.
