Museum’s New Hall of Economics and Finance Sets Lofty Goal : Equation: Games + Gadgets = Fun

One hundred and thirty-five years after English author Thomas Carlyle called economics “the dismal science,” there is a museum in Los Angeles that may prove him wrong.

Using games, gadgetry and colorful graphics, the Mark Taper Hall of Economics and Finance in Exposition Park, which opened last week, hopes to do what many have thought impossible: make the abstract notions of economics and high finance simple and fun for the average person.

The newest addition to the California Museum of Science and Industry, the privately funded, $7-million business museum is the first of its kind in the country, according to museum officials. Its hands-on exhibits and computer games teach everything from buying a house from the “Loan Ranger” to deciphering the financial pages of a newspaper. For aspiring high rollers, there is the “Bonga Bead Exchange” where four people race against the closing minutes of a stock market clock to buy and sell beads for their imaginary clients. And instead of reading dry textbooks about taxes and government, visitors get to fuel and launch a hot air balloon to see what happens when the federal budget gets out of control. “It’s the greatest economics classroom that there is,” said Eugene Gendel, an economics professor who left his teaching job in Pennsylvania to become the museum’s administrator last month. “It makes things come alive, it’s painless and it’s interesting.” Housed in a new $3-million building named for Los Angeles financier Mark Taper, whose $1.1-million donation was the largest, the Hall of Economics and Finance is the brainchild of the late William Bartman, a museum board member and lawyer. He suggested the idea 12 years ago. Bartman pushed for the facility because he believed that there is a great deal of “economic illiteracy” in the country, public relations director Bud Hopps said. “People don’t know how to spend their money.”

They also may be confused by such things as banking and inflation.

“We’re just two dumb 30-year-olds who came here to learn about business,” said Herb Cooley, a salesman from Newport Beach who, with his friend, Don Parker, had just finished tallying up his profits from the Bonga Bead Exchange. “Like a lot of doctors, I’m trying to learn more about money and how to handle it,” added Jan Duncan, an orthopedic surgeon from Los Angeles. “This place is not for kids,” Duncan said, conceding that some of the information--such as the wall-length chart of 100 years of economic history--was hard for even him to grasp.

Keynesian and Marxist theories of economics aside, the museum’s first young visitors gave it their stamp of approval.

“Oo!,” squealed Kristie Marvel, an eighth-grader from Fullerton’s Eastside Christian School, who was delighted that she had pushed the right button to help her finance a new dream house. “This is fun!”

“I’ve never been to one of these,” said a beaming Lawrence Valadez, 16, from Montebello’s Schurr High School, as he motioned to a friend to look at his high score on the savings and loan game. “The other museums are usually ‘don’t touch.’ ”

Visitors wind their way around more than 60 exhibits with an “economic express card” that they insert to start up each of the educational games. Once the museum is in full swing, a personal print-out of participants’ scores will spew out of a machine near the museum’s exit.

“Ideally, this museum should not only teach people new things about their daily lives but inspire them to go out and get more information on their own,” Hopps said.

Museum officials note that only 7% of the nation’s high school students have taken a course in economics and that only half of all social studies teachers have taken even one course in the subject.

“As long as people walk out with a greater understanding than when they came in,” Gendel added, “the museum will be serving its purpose.”

Less than a week old, the Hall of Economics and Science appears to be off to good start.

“I learned about money, inflation and how much to pay for a trip to Mexico,” said 17-year-old Raymond Vargas, who hopes to be a rock star or an actor someday. “The best part is pushing all the buttons.”