Event name: National Air and Space Museum Field Trip
Event time and place: February 24, The National Air and Space Museum
Exploring the Planets: The fields of science and aerospace technology that are being presented in this exhibit are focused on the various planets in our solar system. Many of the exhibits we saw gave a lot of information about the different structures of the planets as well as things like different missions NASA has sent to learn more about these other planets like the Mars rover. One of the exhibits we looked at detailed the interior structure of rocky planets. It did this by showing a 3D model with a slice of it cut out to illustrate what the structure really looks like, which includes the inner, middle, and outer layers. Another exhibit showcased information about Neptune and Uranus, the two ice-giant planets. This exhibit was a plaque on the wall and displayed pictures of the planets with text next to them describing what the planets were like, as well as who discovered them and some of their history. A third and final exhibit we looked at was a replica of the Marie Curie rover. This was able to provide a lot of information about what the rover looked like and what it was made out of because you could actually see it with your own eyes. There was also a plaque that gave other information about what it accomplished and when. Overall, I think that these exhibits are designed to be able to be understood by people fairly young, around 3rd grade. I think this because there are a lot of visual representations of things in the museum which are much easier to understand for younger people. The descriptions of the exhibits are also very easy to read and understand even for the younger audience. I think that it was designed this way because they wanted to museum to be visited by people of all ages, as well as getting young people interested in air and space-related fields. This area also has a lot of hands-on components, for instance, the model of the rocky planets was made you you to touch and feel and gave you a better understanding of what the surface of rocky planets may be like. I also thought that these exhibits that were hands-on really helped to give a better understanding of what the exhibit was trying to get across.
Destination Moon: This exhibit focused on the fields of science and aerospace that had to do with the moon. It gave a lot of information about general facts about the moon as well as the different NASA missions designed for the moon, such as the Apollo missions. One of the first exhibits we stopped at was an interactive digital display that lets you play videos about movies in the past that dreamed of going to the moon. These movies were made in the early 1900’s and were movies such as “A Trip to the Moon”, and “Destination Moon”. These were some of the things that led us to try so hard to go to the moon later in the 1900’s. Another exhibit we saw was the Comand Module of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. This was where the astronauts stayed on their journey to the moon and is an incredible piece of history. In front of the Comand module was a plaque that gave a lot of information about the Comand Module such as its different parts and why it was designed the way it was. The final exhibit we looked at was the F1 engines that powered the flight to the moon. This exhibit was massive, and they had mirrors set up so that the one F1 engine they had on display looked like 5. They did this because the Saturn V rocket that took the astronauts to the moon had 5 of these F1 engines on them. The size of this display made it very cool, but the plaque with information on it also had a smaller version of the engine that you could touch and get a feel for. I think that this exhibit overall was also designed for young people to be able to have a fun time looking through, as there were a lot of visual aids that looked amazing. A lot of the information was also easy to understand but was focused on a lot of the history of the moon missions making it a bit easier to understand if you were a bit older. This exhibit also had quite a few interactive components that were really fun to play with and helped to give you a better understanding of whatever you were looking at. For example, they had different displays of astronaut suit gloves you could touch which helped you see and feel what it may have been like to be wearing one.
One World Connected: The final exhibit focuses on things closer to Earth and how the technology we created allows us to be much more connected with the rest of the world. Different things like planes and satellites allow a lot of incredible new things for us to do. The biggest and most central exhibit we saw was a huge globe with a digital screen displaying various things on it. It looked like Earth but also displayed flight paths, satellites, animals, and many other things. There were then stations with screens where you could learn more about whichever part you wanted to. This was extremely interesting and provided tons of information about the different ways our world is connected. Another exhibit we saw was a panel talking about the impact that the way we ship things has on the environment. It showed the ways of shipping by plane, boat, or truck, and whether or not they were local, national, or international. There was then a wheel you could spin to try and see if the combination you chose was feasible and whether or not it was environmentally friendly. If it was a light lit up let you know. This was very cool to experiment with and taught me a lot about why we ship things the way we do. The last exhibit we saw was a detailed model of what a Boeing 747 Freighter looked like. There was a model of the plane with a side cut off so we could see inside and what it was like. There were also descriptions of it explaining why those design choices were made and what the planes were used for. This exhibit was also designed to be able to be understood by younger people, but in my opinion, out of all three required the highest education level. This is because it was really focused on a lot of the new technology like satellites and other complex technologies and also gave a lot of detail about them, making some parts a bit harder to understand for younger people. The different interactive components were very cool though, and the screens around the big globe in the middle were incredibly cool as they let you visualize so many different things in our world.
The designers of these exhibits did an incredible job at making them detailed and educational but also very understandable. There were a lot of visuals to look at but also a lot of things to read, both allowing you to really understand the topics they were trying to teach you about. They also did a very good job at making sure not to assume anything we may not already know. A lot of the exhibits talked about the history of space exploration, such as the Moon exhibit, which is history and won’t really ever be wrong because it just showed what happened. In other exhibits like the other planets and world-connected ones, they allowed themselves to update their exhibits by making a lot of them digital displays that could be changed and updated with ease if they discovered something new that was to change what we had already known.