...can we make them not so icky? Can that even be done? Kids themselves are sticky and messy, so is it possible to have a children's museum that doesn't fall prey to their sticky, messy hands?
Story time: This summer, Scott and I went to the Boonshoft Museum. It was a weekday, so it was relatively quiet and empty. There was maybe one field trip group that we encountered, and 10 or so parent-child duos or trios. All in all, an ideal setting for someone who plugs her ears and sings nonsense aloud when asked when she'll have kids. (This applies to all parties; friends, family, strangers, bus drivers, dog walkers, you name it). This aversion to raising offspring of my own doesn't stop me from acting like a child myself, though. I'm all about making dams and locks with plastic blocks on a huge water table, or crawling through fake logs to look at a nature diorama, or watching otters play and roll around in the water with a plastic ball. What I am NOT about, however, is finding dirty old band-aids while I'm trying to identify catfish characteristics, or ending up with unidentified gooey residue on my hands after using gloves to dig through fake mud to find fossils, or not being able to see the bats in the nocturnal animals areas because the night vision goggles don't work*.
I get it. Maintenance is expensive. Maintaining things that are handled day in and day out by kids can't be any different. Kids have short attention spans, so if not every single thing is working exactly right 100% of the time, they probably won't even notice. Plus, the goo just blends in with the goo that's already present on their tiny hands. So is my experience at Boonshoft indicative of children's museums in general? A unique experience at one institution? Are my concerns even valid because I'm not a part of the target audience?
Some of the issues don't hinder my ability to learn or see the aims of the museum, they just make for a less than ideal visit. Others though, like the night vision goggles, make it impossible to participate in an exhibit. That's when I think issues like that really become a problem. The target audience doesn't matter much if no one can enjoy an exhibit. Without knowing the maintenance schedules or anything like that, it's impossible to say how often things like that go down. Are they checked daily? 3 times a week? Constant vigilance is the only way to nip problems like that in the bud, but I'm not sure how practical that is either. It's probably not cost-efficient to have a team of people constantly wandering the museum testing things during all operating hours. So I guess all I can do is report any issues that I do come across to staff and hope they can fix it in a timely manner, and carry a lot of hand sanitizer.
*All things that happened while we were there.
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