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Fun for Kids: New York’s Brooklyn Children’s Museum
by
findingDulcinea Staff
If your kids think a trip to the museum is boring, the Brooklyn Children's Museum will change their minds. Here, the exhibits are meant to be touched and enjoyed as a way to explore the world with both hands. Is there any better way to learn? Read on.
The World’s First Children's Museum
The Brooklyn Children's Museum opened in 1899, as the first museum intended solely for kids. Since then, the museum has developed a collection of nearly 27,000 objects. A variety of interactive exhibits teach about science, culture, and more. The museum and its principles have proven wildly popular, as 300 other children's museums created around the world have followed
Source: The Brooklyn Children’s Museum
The museum’s Web site offers a virtual tour at Collections Central. Click on an object to see information about it, navigate to other similar objects, and even participate in the museum’s drawing project—make a sketch online, save it, and see your creation published on the site. Many of the museum’s interactive exhibits also have coordinated Web activities.
The museum will soon unveil a multi-million-dollar expansion by famed architect Rafael Viñoli. The new, bright-yellow building, twice the size of the older museum, will feature state-of-the-art technologies such as geothermal heating and cooling, solar energy, and recycled materials, making it New York City’s first “green” museum. Since the Brooklyn Children’s Museum is dedicated to education, the new building will offer exhibits and visible demonstrations of its technology. As a “green” teaching tool, BCM continues to be a pioneer.
Nature Around the Corner
There’s more do see and do in the Brooklyn neighborhood of the Children’s Museum, especially in Prospect Park, which contains a zoo, an 18th-century farmhouse, a carousel, and an ice-skating rink. Prospect Park’s zoo began as an animal menagerie in the late 1800s. As keepers learned more about the needs of the animals who lived there it became clear that the zoo needed remodeling. The new and improved Prospect Park Zoo opened in 1993, and you can see portraits of its residents at the zoo’s photo gallery.
Source: Prospect Park Official Site
If you've got a green thumb, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is excellent inspiration to help you in your gardening pursuits (and for those with a thumb that's a little more brown, the garden will serve as a wonderful substitute). With more than 10,000 plants from around the world and 52 acres to roam, it's easy to get lost in the color and beauty of the flowers and trees here. The garden is known for its extensive programs for children and families. Explore the plants in bloom each month, or just take your time to stop and smell the roses (literally) at the world-famous Cranford Rose Garden.
Source: Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Walk Across History
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the United States, and one of four major bridges across New York's East River. In fact, it was the first bridge across the river, connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan. When it was completed in 1883, Brooklyn Bridge held the title of longest suspension bridge in the world. A walk across the bridge is an educational adventure. The award-winning history of this work, for adult readers, is David McCullough’s “The Great Bridge.” For young readers, “Brooklyn Bridge” is a fine introduction.
Source: Great Buildings
Built by father-and-son team John and Washington Roebling, this historic structure has some pretty impressive statistics: It weighs 14,680 tons (not including its masonry), and the four suspension cables, which are 15.75 inches in diameter, each contain 5,434 wires for a length of 3,515 miles of wire per cable In 1982, PBS broadcast the film “Brooklyn Bridge,” about the "greatest of all achievements of the industrial age." Learn about the motivation behind the film, and watch video clips, from the PBS Web site.
Source: PBS
© 2012 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
