Facing ‘Facts’: Low-Tech, High-Response Features

Just look at that face.

No, really look at it--the way, say, a toddler might.

Kids are naturally fascinated with their faces, but somewhere along the line we start focusing on our face’s imperfections and forget what a marvel our mugs really are. “Faces: The Facts,” a simple but inviting exhibit at the Children’s Museum at La Habra, is a good reminder.

Developed by the museum’s former curator of education, Carrie Wictor-Gonzales, “Faces: The Facts” features about a dozen hands-on stations that demonstrate how our faces define our uniqueness and communicate our thoughts and feelings to the outside world.

But mostly the stations are a perfect excuse to make monster faces in public.

Suitable for preschoolers through students in lower elementary grades, the interactive exhibit opened last month and continues through Jan. 26. Popular stops with a recent weekday crowd included the Exercise Your Mouth display, where children recite vowels and consonants to see how facial changes affect the sounds of each, and a magnetic board where combinations of cardboard eyes, noses and mouths can be grouped into different arrangements. Another favorite, Change Your Attitude, lets visitors hold half-masks depicting mouths and chins set in various expressions (happy, quizzical, peaceful) in front of their own faces, then arrange their own eyes and brows--and, presumably, their moods--to match them. (Ah, if only it were that easy.)

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“Faces: The Facts” is not a high-tech exhibit. The visual aids are limited to such things as a few masks, flashlights and mirrors set at child’s height. But its simplicity is effective, encouraging visitors to provide their own special effects.

Eight-year-olds Alyssa Imperial and Alaina Hee had no trouble on that front. Parking themselves in front of a mirror and acting on the invitation of a gallery sign, the friends spent several minutes wiggling noses, sticking out tongues and exploring a range of facial expressions.

Alyssa said she’s learned a lot by studying the way faces can express a person’s unspoken views.

“Sometimes,” she volunteered, “my mom will be talking to my dad, and he’ll do this” (her eyes rolled heavenward). “That means, he doesn’t want to hear it.”

Alaina said she’s been doing a little at-home research herself.

“When my dad or my brother get mad, they get all stiff and do this,” she offered, setting her mouth rigidly and breathing in short, angry spurts.

If they had been so inclined (they weren’t), the girls could have delved into the physiological reasons for their relatives’ eye rolling and jaw clenching. One of the exhibit stations features a human skull with signs that identify its major areas. The signage doesn’t go into much detail, but gallery docents could have explained how the mandible, or lower jawbone, works in concert with a network of facial muscles to create many of the expressions we make.

Of course there are times when those expressions, like words, can’t be taken strictly at face value.

At the Change Your Attitude station, Patrick Lane and Derek Army--members of a visiting kindergarten class from Villa Park’s Serrano Elementary School--seized nearly identical masks showing a mouth with its tongue jutting out. The pair held them up to their faces, then regarded their reflections side-by-side in the mirror.

“He looks like he’s saying, ‘Go away. I don’t like you,’ ” observed Patrick.

“Nah,” countered Derek. “I think he’s spitting out some food because he thinks it’s yucky.”

* CHILDREN’S LISTINGS, FXX

* What: “Faces: The Facts.”

* When: Through Jan. 26. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

* Where: Children’s Museum at La Habra, 301 S. Euclid St., La Habra.

* Whereabouts: Exit the Orange (57) Freeway at Lambert Avenue; go west. Turn right onto Euclid.

* Wherewithal: Museum admission is $4, free for children under age 2.

* Where to call: (310) 905-9793.