Nov 11, 2010 11:25 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft Surface can be a better fit to education scenarios than all the analog, traditional tools used together, and the new “The Wonder of Light: Touch and Learn!” exhibit opened on November 9th, 2010 at the Smithsonian is an illustrative example of this.

Available at the center of the Castle’s historic Great Hall, “The Wonder of Light: Touch and Learn!” exhibit is focused on children.

For those that can’t actually make it to Smithsonian to let their kids play around with the Surface unit donated by Microsoft, the video embedded at the bottom of this article can give insight into the next generation user experiences that the NUI apps built on top of the software giant’s surface computing can make possible.

“The Smithsonian has made a strategic decision to use technology to connect our physical collections with the digital world to enhance a visitor’s experience,” explained Ann Speyer, the Smithsonian’s chief information officer.

“Microsoft Surface immediately draws you in and is a unique approach to reaching a younger audience at the information center in the Smithsonian Castle, often a first stop for our visiting families.”

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. is just the latest organization to embrace Surface for education purposes. The Redmond company’s tabletop computer is also available to users at the British Library and the Ellis Island Museum.

No less than seven experiences have been built around the theme of light for the exhibition. The actual applications were put together by InfoStrat, a Washington-based technology company which collaborated with Smithsonian staff.

Content from the National Museum of American History (lightbulb, prism), National Postal Museum (stamps) and the National Museum of Natural History (deep-sea life) was used for the new applications, some of which you can see demoed in the video below.

Children can use their hands together to interact with Microsoft Surface, making the best of the multi-touch capabilities of the device.

In addition, Surface is also designed to respond to light and to a series of real-world objects, including flashlight, paintbrush, magnifying ring, a prism and lightbulb models.