Par­ents hunt­ing non-vir­tual ed­u­ca­tional ex­pe­ri­ences don’t need to look too far for op­tions.

After many pan­demic-prompted clo­sures, mu­se­ums and other en­joy­able and ed­u­ca­tional ven­ues are open with safety pre­cau­tions like mask­ing, so­cial dis­tanc­ing and timed tick­ets.

The Frick Pitts­burgh re­opened Jan. 30. The West­more­land Mu­seum of Amer­i­can Art and the Mat­tress Fac­tory on Pitts­burgh’s North Side will re­open early this month. The Car­ne­gie Mu­seum of Art, the Andy War­hol Mu­seum, Car­ne­gie Science Center, Phipps Con­ser­va­tory and Bo­tan­i­cal Gardens, Heinz His­tory Center and the Na­tional Avi­ary are open to the pub­lic, as well.

Though many schools are closed for in-per­son in­struc­tion, learn­ing need not hap­pen only on­line. A fam­ily visit to one of the re­gion’s many cul­tural, his­tor­i­cal, ar­tis­tic and sci­en­tific ven­ues are an ex­cel­lent op­tion for en­gag­ing ex­tra­cur­ric­u­lar ed­u­ca­tion.

While many of the re­gion’s mu­se­ums piv­oted to dig­i­tal ac­tiv­i­ties and “tours” dur­ing the height of the pan­demic, they’re now open for in

-per­son vis­its. Afi­cio­na­dos and fam­i­lies with the time and means should take ad­van­tage and make a visit.

Such an out­ing rep­resents a shake-up to the now fa­mil­iar stay-at-home rou­tines of COVID-19, an op­por­tu­nity to safely ex­plore some of the ar­tis­tic and his­tor­i­cal of­fer­ings of Western Penn­syl­va­nia.

A child’s first visit to the Car­ne­gie Mu­seum of Nat­u­ral His­tory can spark a life­long en­thu­si­asm for di­no­saurs, pa­le­on­tol­ogy or ar­chae­ol­ogy. A trip to the Mat­tress Fac­tory this month, with its site-spe­cific in­stal­la­tion by art­ist Jen­ni­fer An­gus can in­still a sense of won­der and cre­ativ­ity. The Car­ne­gie Science Center of­fers a win­dow into nu­mer­ous sub­jects with age-ap­pro­pri­ate sci­ence-based of­fer­ings tai­lored to ap­peal to kids. A trip to Phipps is a full-on sen­sory ex­pe­ri­ence.

Get­ting out of the house isn’t just a re­prieve from rou­tine for a stu­dent. It’s re­lief from the toll of ex­tended screen-star­ing.

Mu­se­ums may not be at the top of ev­ery child’s want-to-do list, but that’s just be­cause they don’t know what they’re miss­ing — fun, ed­u­ca­tion and a good fam­ily mem­ory.

It looks as though a like­ness of famed abo­li­tion­ist Har­riet Tub­man fi­nally will ap­pear on Amer­i­can cur­rency, res­ur­rect­ing a plan that has been stalled for nearly five years.

It’s the right move by the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, one that al­lows the di­ver­sity of the na­tion to be re­flected in an ev­ery­day com­mod­ity such as pa­per money. Tub­man would be the first Black per­son to be fea­tured on U.S. cur­rency, and one of only a hand­ful of women whose like­ness ap­peared on U.S. cur­rency or coins.

Tub­man’s por­trait will be placed on the $20 bill, a plan first an­nounced in 2016 dur­ing the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion. The goal was to have the new bill un­veiled in 2020 as part of the 100th an­ni­ver­sary of the pas­sage of the 19th Amend­ment grant­ing women the right to vote.

The Tub­man $20 bill de­sign came to a halt, how­ever, un­der Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. He op­posed the idea while cam­paign­ing in 2016, call­ing it a move of “pure po­lit­i­cal cor­rect­ness” and al­lud­ing to his fond­ness for An­drew Jack­son, who is now on the $20 bill.

Former Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steve Mnuchin said last year that the new bills could not be put into cir­cu­la­tion un­til 2028 at the ear­li­est, cit­ing non

-spe­cific tech­ni­cal is­sues. He didn’t say why the roll­out would take nearly eight years com­pared with the Obama plan of about four years, but did say the de­ci­sion would rest with the next trea­sury sec­re­tary.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden wasted lit­tle time in mak­ing it clear that the Tub­man $20 bill would move for­ward, and that his Trea­sury Depart­ment would be study­ing ways to speed up the pro­cess, al­though no time­ta­ble was an­nounced.

Born around 1820, Tub­man es­caped slav­ery and be­came a “con­duc­tor” on the Un­der­ground Rail­road, where she helped other slaves es­cape cap­tiv­ity prior to the Civil War. When her $20 bill is placed in cir­cu­la­tion, she would join Martha Wash­ing­ton and Poca­hon­tas as the only women to ap­pear on bills; im­ages of Su­san B. An­thony, Sacagawea and Helen Keller ap­peared on coins.

Hav­ing a Black woman’s im­age on U.S. cur­rency is a long over­due ac­knowl­edg­ment of the di­ver­sity of the na­tion and the role of Blacks and women in shap­ing our his­tory. The Trea­sury Depart­ment is tak­ing the right ap­proach in fast-track­ing the de­sign and re­lease of a new $20 bill that hon­ors the work and life of Har­riet Tub­man.

An ed­i­to­rial from
The Wash­ing­ton Post

Appear­ing be­fore House law­mak­ers, the act­ing chief of the U.S. Cap­i­tol Po­lice ticked off the fac­tors that al­lowed a mob to storm the Cap­i­tol on Jan. 6. A lack of man­power. In­suf­fi­cient sup­ply of “less-le­thal” weap­ons. Con­fused and gar­bled com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Possible fail­ure in lock­down pro­ce­dures. She apol­o­gized for all the fail­ures — but also said that if Con­gress wants to pre­vent fu­ture at­tacks, it will need to in­crease for­ti­fi­ca­tions and sac­ri­fice pub­lic ac­cess to the build­ing.

“In my ex­pe­ri­ence, I do not be­lieve there was any prep­a­ra­tions that would have al­lowed for an open cam­pus in which law­ful pro­test­ers could ex­er­cise their First Amend­ment right to free speech and at the same time pre­vented the at­tack on Cap­i­tol grounds that day,” act­ing chief Yogananda Pitt­man told a closed ses­sion of the House Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee on Tues­day, ac­cord­ing to a pre­pared state­ment of her re­marks ob­tained by The

Wash­ing­ton Post. Remov­ing any doubt about her de­sire to fence off pub­lic ar­eas of the Cap­i­tol grounds, the act­ing chief on Thurs­day is­sued a state­ment in which she “un­equiv­o­cally” en­dorsed in­creases to the phys­i­cal se­cu­rity in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing per­ma­nent fenc­ing.

No sur­prise that the agency charged with en­sur­ing the safety of the Cap­i­tol would push for re­stric­tions to keep the pub­lic out. That would cer­tainly make its job eas­ier. But mem­bers of Con­gress need to rec­og­nize the costs — to Wash­ing­ton and to the coun­try’s de­moc­racy — to turn the Cap­i­tol into a fenced and armed for­tress. Con­gress should not al­low the se­di­tious ac­tions of hoo­li­gans to be an ex­cuse for clos­ing off even more pub­lic space in the cap­i­tal city.

Over time — af­ter Okla­homa City, af­ter 9/​11 — the Cap­i­tol has be­come less and less ac­ces­sible to the pub­lic. Roads closed in the name of se­cu­rity be­came park­ing perks for Cap­i­tol Hill staff­ers. Tour­ists must nav­i­gate a maze of se­cu­rity check­points. Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia res­i­dents walk­ing or bik­ing on the

pub­lic grounds have be­come ac­cus­tomed to some­times de­mean­ing treat­ment from po­lice. It took an act of Con­gress to tell the Cap­i­tol Po­lice it was OK for chil­dren to sled on a slope of the Cap­i­tol grounds.

We know the days of to­tal open­ness are long gone, but be­fore there is any more loss of pre­cious space and all its in­tan­gi­ble value, Con­gress should de­ter­mine ex­actly what went wrong on Jan. 6 and why. Would a fence re­ally have ad­dressed the fail­ings that al­lowed the Cap­i­tol to be in­vaded? Wash­ing­ton is no stranger to large pro­tests — from the civil rights era to Vi­et­nam to the Mil­lion Man March — so surely there is a way peo­ple can ex­er­cise their First Amend­ment rights with­out per­ma­nently clos­ing off pub­lic ac­cess.

What hap­pened Jan. 6 was not a pro­test but rather wide­spread po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence against the very in­sti­tu­tions of our de­moc­racy in­cited by a pres­i­dent who thank­fully is no lon­ger in of­fice. To the dam­age he has done to the coun­try, let’s not add turn­ing Wash­ing­ton into a “Green Zone.”