This museum "inspired" me to write the following p...

This museum "inspired" me to write the following post on Facebook.

I'm a US Citizen living in the US. Kids museums in Canada are just plain ol' better by a factor of at least 10+ than US museums. I've taken my son to no less than 10 museums in the US since May. Only 2 impressed and neither of those two were better than the least interesting museum I've been to in Canada. Today we went to the Exploreum in Mobile, AL. What I have noticed is that while there are interactive components on both sides of the border for kids age 10 and down, above that age level, the US museums think they can just slap up big touch screens with gratuitous environmental and health/diet messaging and this will elicit a child's passion and intellectual curiosities in biology, earth science, technology, medicine, math, civilization, space, etc. In addition, the pervasive use of *little more* than those big touch screens in the US where kids of all ages are supposed to be drawn to learn or do anything is egregiously counter-intuitive...and I'll say-- it is pathetic, teaches nothing, inspires nothing, challenges no one. It seems that museum designers believe that in order to inspire, they have to become a walk-in 'leap frog' device or it's game over for the institution. Think again curators, design committees and sponsors! You were kids once. What was the essence of your childhood experience that compelled your interests, your passions? Better yet, how about you just pay your staff-members way to a few museums in Canada and you'll quickly say, "Oh my god, we're totally doing this wrong." On top of this, some of the better things in the US museums are pay-only! Really?!?!? Come on. I pay to enter and you want me to pay additional to see a vortex of mist inside a closed plexi-glass tube with a self-service POS device on it? Nevermind that the IMAX cost 8.75 per person for a short movie. And we wonder why our institutiins are cranking out disinterested, uninspired minions who all hit the gloriously high mark of "meets expectations" in school while US companies get beaten in the face for importing actual foreign intellectual capital. Please! Exploreum, you've missed the mark like so many other museums in AL and elsewhere.