My husband is not very interested in passively walking around looking at things hanging on a wall. He was captivated by the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas though. That was a rather "lively* exhibit. Cradle of Aviation Museum, on Long Island is another example. These are relatively 'lively' (maybe dynamic would be more appropriate) museums :)
As for using animals to elicit compassion from children: I think David Attenborough's documentaries would serve that purpose nicely and no animals would have to suffer. It seems rather perverse to impose suffering on non human species just so humans can learn compassion. Perhaps when children see animals in cages they learn something else. Perhaps they learn that we can impose suffering on others and that's OK. Perhaps they learn to discount the value of lives that are not human.
Looking into the eyes of a caged jaguar may teach us to have interest in the animal. It may also teach us to tolerate conditions imposed on animals that we would find unacceptable for ourselves.
Thank you for visiting. As always, you response to the prompt is interesting.
For some reason reading this immediately brought to mind the following cartoon by Gary Larson. It was inspired when his editor visited him one day and was talking to Larson's wife and Larson suddenly exclaimed, 'I just thought of an idea for a cartoon'!
😂😂