Maryland Science Center Unveils You — The Inside Story Sponsored by Johns Hopkins Medicine
New hands-on human body exhibit supported by $1 million State of Maryland grant
On Friday, November 19, the Maryland Science Center unveiled its new human body exhibit, You — The Inside Story, Sponsored by Johns Hopkins Medicine. The 12,000-square-foot experience features 35 hands-on activities that are the hallmark of the Science Center’s brand of informal science education.
Every human body is an amazing machine running on chemistry, biology, and physics, all controlled by an operator who is always learning, growing, and changing. The exhibit’s interactive features put visitors through tests and challenges that reveal how their body is calibrated to the world around them and encourage guests to ponder the body’s capabilities, limitations, and possibilities.
Years in development and fabrication, You — The Inside Story incorporates input from the museum’s Scientific Council as well as Maryland STEM teachers. The creation of the exhibit was supported by a $1 million State of Maryland capital grant.
“In designing You — The Inside Story, our emphasis was on hands-on collaborative learning that gets everyone from field trippers to grandparents asking questions and uncovering answers,” said Mark J. Potter, President and CEO of the Maryland Science Center. “Visitors learn scientific concepts through sensory experience rather than being told or shown on a screen. You’ll see, hear, and feel for yourself how your body reacts and adapts to different stimuli. Guests will work together and be pitted against each other to learn together. This is exciting informal science education that elevates heart rates and generates big laughs. Nothing is remote or passive.”
Some of the features found in You — The Inside Story are:
– Ames Room: a distorted chamber designed to fool sensory perception where visitors will watch their friends and family appear to grow and shrink in comical proportions.
– Mindball Table: visitors will compete in a test of wills and thoughts to see who can move a ball across the finish line using their brain waves.
– Stroop Effect Race: a footrace between friends and between the feet and mind — a bizarre version of ‘Red Light, Green Light’ that demonstrates how the brain processes (and struggles to process) what our eyes see.
– Plenty of Gross: a fart simulator, earwax inspection, parasite removal — plenty of fun and learning that’s inappropriate for the dinner table.
All the elements of You — The Inside Story align with the Maryland State Education Standards, supporting teachers’ lessons while offering an experience that can’t be replicated in the classroom.
“As a boy, I was always interested in math and science. For students, these experiences could lead to a lifelong love of science or perhaps even a career at Johns Hopkins Medicine,” said Dr. Paul B. Rothman, Dean of the Medical Faculty for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. “We are honored to be the presenting sponsor of this exhibit, providing critical support for informal STEM education.”
“As an academic health and research organization, we know that the pursuit of knowledge can not only lead to extraordinary discoveries, it can also fulfill our very human need to understand ourselves and the world,” said Kevin Sowers, M.S.N., R.N., F.A.A.N., President of the Johns Hopkins Health System and Executive Vice President of Johns Hopkins Medicine. “We want kids to be excited about science and to experience that learning can be fun and informative.”
You — The Inside Story is the third new permanent exhibit at the Maryland Science Center in the last three years, joining Math in Nature and Science Aglow. The museum recently completed its capital campaign, “Revitalization for Today – Securing the Future,” which raised $8.8 million for exhibit enhancement, the Traveling Science Program, and the most comprehensive free student admission program of any institution in Maryland. In 2019, 90,000 students visited the Maryland Science Center on free field trips.
About the Maryland Science Center
Named one of Parents Magazine’s Top 10 Science Centers in America, the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore reaches 500,000 people a year. The Maryland Science Center inspires, fascinates, motivates, and engages children and adults with dozens of interactive exhibits, traveling exhibitions, original presentations in the world-famous Davis Planetarium, larger-than-life movies in the five-story St. John Properties IMAX Theater, and hundreds of hands-on programs delivered throughout the state each year. For more information, visit www.marylandsciencecenter.org.
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