Ask a 6-year-old to recite Newton's laws of motion and the best you're likely to get is theorizing about fig-filled cookies. But let the same kid loose amid swings, slides and seesaws and she's bound to know what to do. Exhibit planners at Boston's Museum of Science were counting on that when they put together their newest permanent exhibit, "Science in the Park."

Science in the Park brings the playground indoors, pairing park toys with more traditional experimental setups that demonstrate the same physical principle. A seesaw, for example, sits next to a giant lever with a 225-kilogram weight hanging from one side of the fulcrum and climbing ropes hanging from the other-the notion of torque springs to life as kids see how much easier it is to lift the weight when they tug the rope farthest from the fulcrum. To demonstrate variation in surface friction, the museum has assembled an assortment of shoes; kids drag the shoes across different surfaces and read a built-in force meter to compare resistance.