Exploring Size.

"Exploring" is a magazine of science, art, and human perception that communicates ideas museum exhibits cannot demonstrate easily by using experiments and activities for the classroom. This issue concentrates on size, examining it from a variety of viewpoints. The focus allows students to investigate and discuss interconnections among apparently unrelated phenomena, revealing the essential unity of nature. Seven articles investigate size: (1) In "Worlds Apart" (Eric Engles) students discover the many ways size affects living things, as they learn small and large organisms actually inhabit different worlds; (2) "Model Magic" (Ellen Klages) takes readers behind the scenes to learn how scaling and other movie special effects fool people; (3) "Try This! Cylindrical Challenges" (Paul Doherty) has three activities that introduce students to volume; (4) "What if You Double It?" (Thomas Humphrey) uses real-life examples to explore why this apparently simple question is actually one of the deepest questions of science; (5) "David & the Distorted Room" (Lauren McLean Ayer) uses Michaelangelo's "David" and a distorted room to demonstrate how perception is governed by physical perspective, cultural conditioning, and, sometimes, optical illusions; (6) "A Pygmy's Perception" (Colin Turnbull) focuses on how environment effects perception of the world, through one person's size-distance experience; (7) "The Stressful Life of Buildings" (Barry Kluger-Bel) examines how architecture in part is governed by scaling. Regular departments give factoids, answers to readers questions, and information on related tools, toys, reading, and teaching strategies. (DQE)