Museum of Mathematics

Here’s an incredibly cool place to go in the future for those of you lucky enough to live in NYC. It’s the Museum of Mathematics. I can already feel my inner nerd jumping up and down with excitement and envy. Seriously, why didn’t someone think of this when I was a kid? We in America decry the lowering math scores and how we’re losing our competitive edge in science and math to other countries, and we don’t really do enough to make science and math fun for kids. A zillion dollars going to boost standardized test prep and all the debate in the world about national standards aren’t going to be nearly as useful as making intellectual pursuits fun for kids. Why? Because at the end of the day, unless a kid has fun doing something, he or she is not going to motivated to continue growing their brains outside of the classroom. What’s sad is that it wasn’t until 2009 that this museum was actually chartered. They plan on opening their doors in 2012, but in the meanwhile they have a traveling exhibition: Math Midway. We need more places like this and we need to make places like this grow and succeed.