Ur eighth-grade science teacher is planning a trip to the science museum, and she showed us the exhibits on the museum website. the first-floor exhibits are immature, with water tables for play and sand boxes for "fossil” digs. the second-floor exhibits allow students to create, featuring simple machines, exploding volcanoes, and build-your-own electric circuits. these exhibits align with three of our units of study. the third floor boasts a 3d movie theater; unfortunately, the movie lengths exceed the time allotted for our field trip.

photography had emerged as an elite art pursued by a few creative individuals for a few wealthy patrons. but now, said bauldelaire, it was succumbing to "the great industrial madness of our times." it was becoming a mass production industry that catered to middle-class tastes, including a taste for gadgetry. the stereoscope, the first 3d imaging system, had turned looking at photographs into parlor entertainment. a "thousand hungry eyes were bending over the peepholes of the stereoscope as though they were the attic-windows of the infinite.