Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Hidden Gems (01 Jan 2005) Nearly 10 years ago, IEEE Spectrum put out a call to engineers and their kids. We asked them to check out some of the U.S. science and technology museums and tell us the truth—were they fun? Were they accurate? Were they up to date? At the time, more than 50 families reviewed 37 museums in 19 states and the District of Columbia [see http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/publicaccess/0995muse.html]. These museums can have a huge impact; my husband, for instance, credits a childhood visit to a science museum with starting him on his path to a Ph.D. in space physics. So last year we asked again. This time, thanks to the Internet, IEEE members around the world contributed. So far, 14 families have reviewed 26 museums in seven countries. This month in Spectrum, we begin publishing summaries of our members' latest reviews. [For the full text of their comments, see http://www.spectrum.ieee.org.] The reports are personal—and what interests one family may not interest another. Still, some trends are emerging. For example, physical implementations and demonstrations of scientific principles have a bigger impact upon many of our reviewers than computer simulations. Article URL: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/jan05/0105scit.html Read 83 more articles from IEEE Spectrum sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: New year, New Website     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy