Museum of Science, Boston

Exhibit [Return to listing page]
Blue Wing, Lower Level

This exhibit is no longer at the Museum.

This interactive exhibit examines the concept of communication in its broadest form, and it actually challenges visitors to communicate with each other. The main focus of the exhibit is animal communication in its many modes, which include humans. The exhibit also features activities revolving around the technology of communication.

Multi-sensory participatory activities help to stimulate your thinking about the ways that the sending, receiving, and interpreting of messages intersects with our lives. Learn how our sense of smell is incredibly important, yet we have a very poor vocabulary to describe it. See if you can identify different commercially available scents, and learn about the use of scents by many retailers to send a message about what they sell.

To learn about the ways filmmakers use music to convey the emotional message in their films, select a scene from a movie and use various soundtracks to see their effect.

Explore some of the complexities and similarities of human language by listening to how the English or French sound in different parts of the world. You can also listen to eight different languages and see if you can determine which one isn't related to the others.

Finally, learn about communication challenges when you and a friend try to build the same pattern out of colored blocks using only verbal instructions.