St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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EXPLORA- TORIUM ! The art of discovery in San Francisco A high-frequency oscillator-transformer 1s not a typical toy for a six-year-old. But then, not much is typical about San Francisco’s Exploratorium—a magician’s sack of “Don’t touch that!” wonders that b eg to be opened, touched, pounded, pulled on, looked through, listened to, screeched at, and climbed on. The high-frequency oscillator- transformer lies in wait for the unsuspecting six-year-old at the Exploratorium’s entrance, about four feet from the donation barrel. As the visitor contributes his dime or nickel, the coin activates a switch that sends 300,000 volts of purple lightning zapping from a tall pole, turning on five phosphorescent tubes. It is the rare child—or even grown-up—who doesn’t drop in a second coin just to see what happens. Such “sight-seeing” is what the Explora- torium is all about—and what director Frank 32 Oppenheimer believes is the necessary first step toward learning and discovery. Not the guided-bus-tour kind of sight-seeing where the driver tells you what you see—or what you should be seeing. But the get-out- and-get-dirty kind of sight-seeing where you explore first and ask questions later . . . All Exploratorium exhibits are designed to be enjoyed—and learned from—on many levels. In a far corner of the dim, semi- circular cavern, a father and his small son are experimenting with a pedal generator. The that it pedaling to keep the three lights bright than son discovers takes a lot more it does to ride his own bike up a steep hill. Electricity comes from energy. The father, meanwhile, is more interested in the sign that says that you can buy the energy re- quired to keep the lights bright for just 1 100th of a cent. He gets into a long dis- cussion with an Explainer about sources o}) power, nuclear generators, motors, and why the family station wago won t start on cold mornings. electric ca}, Oppenheimer roams the Exploratoriur}, continually to see how visitors are using th} exhibits. The museum changes daily as ex}, hibits are rotated or modified. In fact, th}, Exploratorium is one of the few museum}, that keeps its exhibits only so long as th} staff doesn’t get bored with them. The staf itself is a schizophrenic collection of artist: engineers, teachers, designers, and anybod else who happens to like the place or walk in with a good idea. The “Limbie System,” multi-colored bubble that reflects an imag into infinity, was created by Berkeley sculf tor and, balloonist Ted Bridenthal. Opper heimer is a physicist and professor who, lik}. rejected nuclear weaponry and paid for hi |

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— = — — — — a = a ey | stitutions of mass (higher) education are a sent cultural innovation. Why should we ve assumed that the form in which they essed the function of extended citizen wning was immortal? As the function of cher becomes despecialized, so (from our rspective) the education comes deinstitutionalized and is freed to reconfigured with the “other” processes our integral lives—perhaps in forms hard process of = KD Or Zo CTT f AAs iia | i; to recognize. But forms there will be, for, actually, talk about ‘‘institutions’’ versus “deinstitutionalization” is nonsense, as is the argument about ‘“‘structure” versus ‘“nonstructure.” There is no nonstructure; even chaos has within it the form of whatever consciousness persists through it. If an institution is the shape in which a basic human need is serviced in society, then what es Sl, a Yael, S Aes | | ) Le ) 4 | am = so. sketchily describing as a process-system is an institution in an early stage of evolution. But it takes an understanding different from that provided by the standard model of “institution” to recognize in this swirl of first of the higher form appropriate to current motion a model institutional changing age. our August 19, 1972 Copyright, Suturday Review, Inc. 31

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‘neifist views with political and sometines Mientific ostracization. After the war “'ppenheimer spent ten years as a rancher in ‘blorado before returning to the classroom I d the laboratory. He came to San Hancisco in 1968 to put together the ‘xploratorium as a science museum at the | ’s Palace of Fine Arts—a forbidding U ezoleum that was erected in 1919. The side of the structure has hardly been ‘juched since it was a garage for army trucks ring the war... It is essential to the Exploratorium’s rpose that visitors can experiment and play” with the exhibits. Oppenheimer imself is concerned that the knowledge gap ptween scientists and nonscientists is icreasing. Most science museums, he says, ‘prify the past and the present but do little | make the wonders of science accessible to ue general public. In fact, Oppenheimer lieves that places like the Exploratorium ‘‘Yntaged” children with the rich environ- ‘‘Jent they need in order to escape the jstrictions of city life and to begin the jocess of discovery. This kind of compensa- ‘Jom or on TV. Trying to open the world to ‘“Vildren without authentic props is like | The Exploratorium has big plans for the ture. They include 800 new exhibits, | pansion into biological and other sciences, “id a library of portable exhibits that students could take to school and share with their classmates. But already, using only natural phenomena, Oppenheimer and his staff have created an experience that bends the mind in a way that few institutions can match. And turning kids on is, after all, what good teaching is all about. K.C. Cole, October 14, 1972. Copyright, Saturday Review, Inc. “Teaching science in a classroom takes the speculation and imagination out of learning. There's always a right and a wrong answer. Actually, scientists base what they do largely on esthetics. Frank Oppenheimer Exploratorium director 33