All right, so picture this. It's a Saturday afternoon.
You decide, OK, I'm going to get some culture.
Right. You walk into a museum and it's like a
switch flips. Your posture changes. Oh, yeah.
The hands go behind the back. Museum stand. Exactly.
Your voice drops to this, you know, library whisper.
And everywhere, just everywhere is that one sign.
Do not touch. In big, angry letters. It's so
passive. But today, we are diving into a place
that basically takes that rulebook and, I don't
know, shreds it. And probably uses the confetti
for an experiment, yeah. We are talking about
a place where the name itself is a command to
do the exact opposite of standing still and being
quiet. We're looking at Explora. In Albuquerque,
New Mexico. And before we get into the nuts and
bolts of it all, and I mean that literally we
have to talk about that name, Explora. Because
the source material makes a really specific point
about it. It does, and this is kind of the key
to the whole place. Explora isn't just a catchy
name. It's not a noun. Okay. It is the imperative
form of the Spanish verb, explorer. It literally
translates to explore. Oh, I love that. So it's
not the Museum of Exploration. It's an instruction.
It's a command. It's shouting at you, hey, you,
go explore this thing right now. Exactly. It
sets the terms of engagement the second you hear
the name. A noun is scatic, right? A verb is
active. And that grammatical choice, it actually
dictates their whole philosophy. Their mission
isn't just to display science. Right. It's to,
and I'm quoting here, create opportunities for
inspirational discovery and the joy of lifelong
learning. Inspirational discovery is, I mean,
that's a great phrase for a brochure, but let's
be honest, every museum says that. Of course.
What makes this place different from, say, a
natural history museum that has a really, really
cool dinosaur skeleton? And that's the perfect
question. The difference is the pedagogy, the
teaching method. Okay. Most museums use what's
called didactic learning. I tell you a fact.
You read the fact on a plaque, you now know the
fact. Explore is all about inquiry -based learning.
Okay, unpack that for me. Because inquiry -based
sounds like I have to do all the work. You do,
and that's the whole point. Look, in a traditional
museum, you'd walk up to a steam engine, read
a little card that explains how pressure creates
motion, and maybe you push a button. Right, and
a wheel turns. I'm just confirming what the plaque
told me. You're fact -checking the curator. Yeah.
Exactly. At Explorer, you walk up to a station
with, like, a bunch of valves and pressure gauges
and a piston. And there are no instructions.
So you have to figure it out. You have to fiddle
with the variables yourself to figure out how
to make the wheel turn. You're not consuming
the answer. You are generating it. Which I got
to say, it sounds kind of inefficient. If I want
to know how a steam engine works, why not just
tell me? Because of how our brains work. There's
this thing in psychology called the generation
effect. Okay. Basically, you remember information
way better if you generate it yourself rather
than just reading it. When you struggle with
those vowels and you finally get that piston
to move, your brain files that away as a victory.
Ah, so it's the difference between reading a
recipe and actually baking the cake and having
it fall flat three times. And then finally getting
it right on the fourth try. You never, ever forget
how to bake that cake. You forget the recipe
you read five minutes ago. That's a fair point.
All right, so the physical space itself. The
current location is near Old Town Albuquerque.
It's huge, 20 ,000 square feet. Yeah, and it's
got that really distinct, colorful dome you can
see from the street. And inside, they're doing
something else that's a little different. They
don't separate the subjects. No, they don't.
It's all blended together. Which I notice. Usually
you have the art museum over here, and the science
center is like way over there. Right. They treat
art, math, and science as... Well, as different
languages for talking about the same world. Think
about it. If you're building something with blocks,
is that engineering? Is it math? Or is it sculpture?
The answer is yes. Yeah. It's all of them. The
real world doesn't have these neat little subject
dividers. Okay. I want to get to the exhibits
because I saw a note about a high wire bike that
we have to discuss. But first, the history. The
history is wild. Yeah, the origin story reads
like a corporate drama. It is a miracle this
place even exists. It really is. You have to
picture Albuquerque back in 1983. There were
two totally separate groups of people who both
wanted to start a museum, but they didn't even
know about each other. So in one corner, you
have the Children's Exploratorium group. I'm
picturing finger paints and, you know, soft blocks.
Probably. Yeah. And in the other corner, you
have the New Mexico Academy of Science. So, you
know, the serious academics, toddlers versus
tenured professors, pretty much. And for years
they were just operating on these parallel tracks.
Then around 85, they finally connect. And just
as they're starting to talk, a new challenger
appears. A third player enters the game, a group
called Health Quest. OK, so now you have three
different nonprofits all trying to build a big
interactive museum in the same city, all going
after the same money. Yeah, that's a recipe for
disaster. Usually you see a big fight, nobody
gets enough funding, and nothing gets built.
Or you get three tiny, terrible storefront museums
that close in a year. Exactly. But this is where
they did something really smart. Instead of a
turf war, they formed a consortium. They realized
if we go to the city separately, we're all just
noise. But if we band together and pitch one
big quality of life project for the whole community.
Then they have a shot. That's brilliant. They
stopped selling science or health and started
selling civic improvement. Precisely. And it
worked. They got the city to approve a tax project.
But, and this is a big but, getting the money
on paper is not the same as having a building.
And so being what I'm calling the nomadic years,
this is my favorite part, for like a decade.
This place was basically homeless. They were
wandering in the desert, yes. So follow this
timeline. In 93, they open in a downtown Galleria.
Okay, respectable. But then they move to the
Sheraton Old Town. A hotel. A hotel. Can you
imagine trying to run a physics demo next to
a wedding reception? I mean, it sounds crazy,
but think about the resilience that it takes.
Most organizations would have just quit. True,
but then it gets even better. They leave the
hotel for a mall. They're a mall museum. Which
is actually a fascinating place to be. How so?
Well, when you're in a dedicated building, your
visitors made a choice to be there. In a mall,
you are competing with the pretzel stand and
the movie theater. So your exhibits have to be
good, like really, really good. Instantly engaging.
It's like natural selection for exhibits. The
boring ones die fast. So that whole decade was
basically their R &D phase. Absolutely. So by
the time they officially merged with the Albuquerque
Children's Museum in 1995, they had already battle
-tested their entire philosophy on thousands
of unsuspecting shoppers. So when they finally
opened that permanent building in 2003, they
weren't just guessing what would work. They had
10 years of data. They knew hands -on was the
only way to go. Okay, let's talk about those
hands -on things. Because some of these exhibits,
they sound intense. We have to start with the
high wire bike. Ah, the signature piece. Describe
this for me. Because bike on a wire sounds like
something from the circus right before tragedy.
It is exactly what it sounds like. It's a bicycle
on a steel cable suspended about two stories
up in the air. You climb up. get strapped in,
and you just pedal across the open atrium. And
your brain is just screaming, this is a terrible
idea. Your survival instincts are going crazy,
yes. But it's a perfect lesson in physics, specifically
center of gravity. Okay, explain it. Why don't
you just tip over and fall? Because there's this
huge heavy counterweight hanging from a rigid
pole directly beneath the bike. It's so heavy
that the combined center of mass for you, the
bike, and the weight is actually below the wire
you're riding on. So to tip over, you'd have
to physically lift that giant weight up against
gravity. Which you can't do. Physics literally
locks you onto that wire. You're more stable
up there than you are on a normal bike on the
street. But it doesn't feel that way. Not at
all. And that disconnect. the feeling of I should
be scared, but I'm actually safe, that creates
this visceral memory. You never forget what center
of mass means after that. It's that generation
effect again. You're generating the adrenaline
so you remember the lesson. Exactly. It turns
an abstract concept into an emotion. Okay. Then
there's the laminar flow fountain. This seems
like the polar opposite of the bike. It is. The
bike is chaos and fear. This is pure, beautiful
order. So what is it? So think about your kitchen
faucet. When you turn it on, the water's all
bubbly and white, right? That's turbulent flow.
Total chaos. Water molecules are crashing into
each other. But if you can get all the layers
of water to move perfectly in parallel at the
same speed, you get laminar flow. And at Explora,
the water looks fake, like a solid glass rod
just hanging in the air. It looks frozen. Until
you touch it, and that's the key. You stick your
hand in the stream, you create turbulence, and
you see the glass just shatter into a normal
spray of water. Then you pull your hand out,
and poof! It instantly reforms into that perfect
glassy arc. It's mesmerizing. I also have to
ask about the experiment bar. Ah, yes. This is
just a stroke of genius, socially. It sounds
like a sushi bar, but for science. That is the
perfect description. You sit at a counter. You're
handed a menu. And instead of ordering a drink,
you order an experiment. I'll have the circuit
board challenge, please. And someone brings it
to you? Yep. An educator acts as the bartender.
They bring you a tray with all the parts. But
why? Why the theatrics? Why not just put the
experiments on a table? Because it changes the
whole dynamic. If stuff is just sitting out,
people, especially kids, they run up. grab something
drop it and run off right it's chaotic by making
it a bar with a menu it signals that this is
an experience to be savored it slows you down
it makes you focus it dignifies the science treats
it like a craft cocktail or something exactly
so clearly the locals in albuquerque love this
place i saw the best of burke awards and the
quote they used was great it said explore it
gets grown -ups excited too We all want an excuse
to ride the high wire bike. We do. But beyond
the local love, Explora has gotten some serious
national attention. They're a model for the entire
industry. Yeah, I saw they're big in the Association
of Science Technology Centers. But the award
that really jumped out at me was for a program
called Portal to the Public. Pop. Yeah, Portal
to the Public is probably their most important
contribution to the wider scientific community.
What's the problem it's trying to solve? It's
solving the curse of knowledge. Yeah. See, Albuquerque
has a ton of high -level scientists. You've got
Sandia, National Labs, Los Alamos. These are
literal rocket scientists. Very smart people.
Incredibly smart. But if you put a quantum physicist
in front of a group of eight -year -olds, it
can be a disaster. Haha, I can imagine. They
use jargon. The kids get bored. Everyone feels
frustrated. There's a huge communication gap.
So POP is like a translation service for scientists.
It's more like empathy training. Explora brings
these scientists in for workshops. They teach
them how to ditch the jargon, how to think like
a non -expert. They help them develop a simple,
hands -on activity that explains what they actually
do. So they basically turn the scientists into
an interactive exhibit. In the best way, yes.
Then they put them out on the museum floor. So
you, as a visitor, get to meet a real, living
scientist and learn what they do. And the scientist
learns how to actually talk about their life's
work. That feels so important. Science that just
stays in the lab doesn't really help anyone.
It democratizes the knowledge. And that commitment
to the community is what led them to, well, the
ultimate recognition. The White House. The National
Medal for Museum and Library Service. That's
the one. It's the highest honor a museum or library
can receive in the U .S. And Explorer won it
in 2010. They did. And the IMLS. the group that
gives the award, they give it for community impact.
They're not looking for who has the most famous
painting. They're looking for who is actively
making their community a better place. There's
this great image of the executive director, Patrick
Lopez, getting the award. It's just such a powerful
story arc. You think about it. They start as
three separate bickering groups. They spend a
decade wandering through hotels and malls. And
they end up at the White House. It completely
validates that whole struggle. It proves that
if you trust your visitors, if you treat them
like active explorers, you build something truly
special. So let's bring this home. What's the
takeaway for us? Most of us are not trying to
start a museum in the desert. I think the big
takeaway is about the value of, let's call it
constructive friction. Constructive friction.
Yeah. We spend so much of our lives trying to
remove friction, right? We want the easy answer.
We want the laminar flow. But Explore proves
that... Real learning, real growth only happens
when you introduce a little bit of friction.
The struggle with the valves on the steam engine.
Exactly. Or the struggle of merging three different
groups. Or the friction of trying to explain
nuclear physics to a 10 -year -old. That's where
the good stuff happens. So if you're facing a
problem right now at work or whatever, and you're
frustrated that you can't find the instruction
manual. You should realize that the lack of an
instruction manual is the whole point. You're
in the inquiry phase. You have to get your hands
on it and just start messing with the variables
until the wheel starts to spin. Stop looking
for the plaque on the wall. And start building
the pressure yourself. Be the verb, not the noun.
Be the verb. I like that. Thanks for diving in
with us today. Keep exploring.