Over the summer I went to Lincoln’s New Salem Historic Site with my sister and my three-year-old niece. I have been going to this site since I was a child and always love it. We were going primarily for the outdoor experience, walking through a recreated historic village, but I insisted we stop at the interpretive center first to check out the exhibits.

Most of the exhibits consisted of panels and artifacts with a couple of mechanical interactives—not really geared towards young children. Though I found the exhibits quite interesting, probably the most fun my niece had in the gallery was going up and down the circular ramps (hey, ramps are pretty fun).

However, she did enjoy one exhibit—a scale model of the mill (which you can see full-sized in the historic village). The model was incomplete on the side facing the visitor to show its inner workings. Two push buttons in front of the model activated two different spinning wheels (or are they called gears?) inside the mill.

All three of us enjoyed this display—it was neat to see the mill come alive when you pressed the buttons. Also, it definitely helped me visualize what the full-sized mill looked like on the inside, which was useful since you can only walk through a small part of the real one. However, I don’t think it taught any of us very much about how the mill works. While there were panels on the walls around it, there was no information directly in front of the model. One or two sentences accompanying each button to explain what was happening would have definitely helped. The model could also be improved by showing what actually powered the mill. The visitor pushes the buttons and activates the wheels—skipping over the real power source, which I think was probably water.

So, are scale models effective? To quote Lisa Brochu, it depends—on the content and on how well they are executed. This mill model was certainly engaging, for me and my niece, which is half the battle. What do you think? Have you had any experiences with scale models that have been really well-done, or have completely missed the point?