This summer, visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art will reach into the vest pocket of an 18th-century master furniture craftsman and pull out his secret guide to pricing furniture in colonial America's wealthiest and most fashionable city.

The Franklin, the most-visited museum in Pennsylvania and a Top Twenty most visited museum in the United States, has announced that it will be hosting an exclusive world appearance of Galileo, Medici and The Age of Astronomy.

German-born Liselotte Grschebina was an avant-garde photographer in Karlsruhe whose work was exemplary of the energizing spirit of cultural innovation during the time of the Weimar Republic. In 1934 Grschebina immigrated to Palestine and opened a studio in Tel Aviv, where she established a reputation for this new genre of photography.

House and Home is a ground-breaking, 5,500-square-foot exhibition that will examine the full sweep of American domestic architecture, from the Native American dwellings first encountered by European explorers to the computer-aided "smart" houses of tomorrow.

The Franklin, Pennsylvania's most-visited museum, has received two $1 million gifts, from The Hamilton Family Foundation and The Sunoco Foundation respectively, to create a new "Changing Earth" exhibit. Slated to open in fall of 2009, this ongoing exhibit will feature the latest in exhibit technology and advances in environmental science to explore the issues facing our changing planet.

The 49th Annual Star-Spangled Independence Day celebration, featuring music from the Chicago Pops Concert Band, a children’s costume parade, and visitors from the pages of Chicago and American history; such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, will provide fun for the entire family on Friday, July 4, 2008 from 10:00 a.m. to 12noon. The keynote Speaker is Leon Despres, former Chicago Alderman. This outdoor event is free and open to the public.

With its campus renewal project fully underway, the Museum begins a program of changing installations in its Youth Wing to showcase masterpieces from its collections in Fine Art, Archeology, and Judaica and Jewish Ethnography, to ensure that major works from the Museum’s vast holdings of 500,000 objects are always available for its visitors.

There are more living creatures in a shovel-full of soil than human beings on the planet, yet more is known about the dark side of the moon than about soil. These are just a couple of the fascinating facts visitors can learn from the new temporary exhibition "Dig It! The Secrets of Soil," open July 19 through Jan. 3, 2010 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Cheer on the competitors in this zany, science cook-off, where teachers compete before a live audience at the Exploratorium for the revered title, "Iron Science Teacher."

The Schad Gallery of Biodiversity: Life in Crisis, scheduled to open at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in early 2009, explores the diversity of life on earth and how these species and habitats are being threatened by human activity.

Between 1933 and 1940 tens of millions of Americans visited world's fairs in cities across the nation. Designing the World of Tomorrow will explore the modernist spectacles of architecture and design they witnessed -- visions of a brighter future during the worst economic crisis the United States had known. The fairs popularized modern design for the American public and promoted the idea of science and consumerism as salvation from the Great Depression.

Light Walks is an art exhibition in honor of Bob Miller, one of the Exploratorium's most influential artists, who died in 2007. Featured artists Jane Aaron, Michael Brown, Marke Esper, Kit Kube, and Michael Walsh use light as their main tool for exploration.