Today I took the kids to see our local science centre. It is about a half hour drive to get there and some of the roads leave a lot to be desired toward the end. I nearly lost my car in one of the potholes. 😀
I found the majority of the exhibits were aimed at kids in the 10+ age range. Most required the ability to read and some of the activities were beyond Ian. There were exhibits about how weather works, how water/rivers flow,the viscosity of oil, ways to effectively arrange a power grid in a neighbourhood to avoid brown outs. There were a whole bunch of things. There was a Body zone that focussed on perception, brain dominance, and memory activities. There were workstations for dressmaking, transistor building, 3D animation, and others. The main floor had a younger child area with rearrangeable gear displays, arts and crafts, a jungle gym, and a water discovery/play area.
It was not as good as the ones in Vancouver or Palm Springs. The distribution of activities to age group was skewed for the older. I can see its usefulness for enriching school curricula – field trips for science classes, but it did not have enough geared towards the under 9s. The coolest thing kid’s zone was the water organ.
Here are some pics from today.
Tammy, Thanks for posting the pictures. It’s nice to see the kids amusing themselves. What is the item featured in pictures 4 & 5??
You’re very good at exploring new things! I guess that is what makes life interesting.
They were huge magnetic balls that the kids could use to build things with nuts and bolts and spoons.