Geek out with your grad at these high-minded museums and events

A tourist takes pictures inside the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

May 30, 2018 6 AM PT

Looking to humble your know-it-all college graduate? Or just reward him or her with an interesting trip? Here are five memorable places to play mind games with your kids, no matter the occasion:

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

For the record:

12:00 p.m. May 30, 2018Deleted item on TED talks deemed too expensive for most readers

Looking for something a bit more accessible? This free Washington museum, in the heart of the Smithsonian complex, will have your space nerd over the moon. The museum tracks all manner of human flight and features a vast collection of related artifacts. Exhibits include the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia and a lunar rock you’re allowed to touch. The museum also houses the Albert Einstein Planetarium and an observatory with telescopes open to the public to gaze out across the cosmos.

Info: Air and Space Museum

Berlin Museum of Medical History

Take your Doogie Howser on a trip into medicine’s fascinating past. The museum’s permanent exhibition “On the Trace of Life” covers 300 years of medical procedures. The tour includes dissection rooms and specimen collections. Body images and models help tour participants understand diagnostic procedures. They’ll also learn how criminologists and pathologists inspect and navigate a crime scene.

Info: Berlin Museum of Medical History

Living Computers: Museum + Labs

“Come in. Geek out,” the website urges. If you can’t do that here, you’re probably not geek material. The Seattle museum, often referred to as LCM+L, specializes in computers and technology. Visitors can use the vintage computers. Newer technologies explore direct-touch, virtual reality, even self-driving cars.

Info: Living Computers: Museum + Labs

Mind Games

No group can mess with your mind like Mensa. Each year, members and guests gather to judge the year’s new board games in a 40-hour marathon. At stake? The Mensa Seal, which means one of the world’s most-exclusive clubs has deemed it worthy of your time. Next year’s event will be in April in Wadsworth, Ohio, about 37 miles southwest of Cleveland.

Info: Mensa Mind Games

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Chris Erskine

Chris Erskine is a nationally known humor columnist and editor who retired from the Los Angeles Times in 2020. Previously he wrote for the Sports, Travel and Saturday sections and edited with the paper’s features staff. As an editor, he has been a part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams at The Times (for his graphics work on the Northridge quake and the North Hollywood bank robbery). He is best known to readers for his weekly humor pieces on life in suburban Los Angeles. His latest book, “Daditude,” released in 2018, is a collection of his favorite Times columns on fatherhood. He has written two other books, “Man of the House” and “Surviving Suburbia,” which reached the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. The Chicago native has also worked for papers in New Orleans and Miami.

Geek out with your grad at these high-minded museums and events

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