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By Petya Dikova

The hands of the astronaut moved slowly up the ladder on the surface of the International Space Station. At one point he lost his balance and flew away from the spacecraft. Then he started the little engine on his chest and safely returned.

While I counted the seconds till his safe return, I realized that this was only a simulation of American astronauts training for the International Space Station. We were sitting in a packed movie theatre at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, watching the documentary “Space Station 3D,” narrated by Tom Cruise.

The film was very powerful and inspiring. It concluded with a wish for success to “all future space travelers” — astronauts, engineers and just tourists. Half of the audience members were children. Some were with their teachers, others with their parents. They participated in different workshops and, of course, at the end of the day they went to the big gift shop where there was everything, from souvenirs and gifts to interactive games.

Science was presented at the center as something very interesting and attractive. Inspiration and work for the progress of mankind, that was the message the children got from their visit. And although I was 35 years old, I wanted for a moment to be an astronaut, too! I found it really fascinating the way children were motivated to study and work in museums and science centers in the United States. At all the places I visited — in Florida, New York, Los Angeles and Washington — I found a common feature. Children were given a very special place. They were welcomed; they could play and enjoy themselves and thus learn to appreciate art and to understand science.

As a mother I could only admire such a strategy. It requires effort and imagination to make art and science understandable for 4- and 5-year-olds. My World Press Institute classmates and I visited an exhibition at The Getty Center in Los Angeles that included a special section for children about Ancient Greece. What impressed me most of all was a workshop for young visitors. There were robes resembling the ancient clothes of the Greek children, which the young visitors could try on. They could draw ancient toys and make pottery, too.

Ready, set — interact!

At the Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. there was a special exhibition for children about young people taking part in masquerades. “Welcome to the Playful Performers. Come and dance with us! What would you use to make a costume?” This was written at the entrance to the exhibition. It was situated in a very big hall at the center of which there was a screen. Children danced on the screen continually. You could walk around and look at the different costumes; you also could create your own mask while looking at some photos: the face mask of a woman, a helmet mask, a crest mask.

“Whirr, whirr, clickity, clackity, click. … These are the early morning sounds as museum staff sharpen dozens and dozens of pencils for the drawing stations in preparation for the day’s visitors,” was written in the brochure for the exhibition. “After touring the exhibition, hundreds and hundreds of children and adults alike are using their imaginations to create their own masks. … These activities are not only educational, they are — first and foremost — fun.”

WPI ’04 fellow Petya Dikova saw the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the first manned spacecraft to land on the moon (in 1969), at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Learning is fun. Nowhere was that principle more manifest than at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Want to know about the role of air pressure? To find out, you could remove a metal cover from a metal container two times, first when there was air inside and then when there was a vacuum. Wonder whether it could be done with a vacuum? Not at all. Want to know more? If you lifted the lid with the clever answers below you could find out why a suction cup stays on your forehead and how you are able to drink juice from a glass with a straw. At the next corner you learned how much you would weigh on the moon and Jupiter. At the next, how big, hot air balloons fly.

My favorite was the National Museum of Natural History. There you could build your own volcano with the help of a computer. You could choose how fluid the magma or molten rock under the earth’s crust is, how much gas it contains and how much magma is erupted. It was fun to learn about earthquakes and mines, plus one of the world’s most precious diamonds — The Hope diamond, which is kept there.

Learning was fun at U.S. museums, not only for children but also for adults. It took imagination and money, but the results were fantastic. What I really liked about these institutions was that they are living societies. They have members that support the museums financially and participate in their activities — all kinds of lectures and discussions. Concerts are organized in the museums, children come to draw and play there. They are like houses bustling with life, very different from the highly respected but inert and unexciting museums in my country.

Museums live when people visit them. They are created for people and they can exist only through them.