Even though August has barely started, it turns out that the Free-Ride offspring have already been to quite a number of museums and related centers of edutainment this summer. We review the line-up:
The Exploratorium (also discussed here)
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: The animals on the upper level.
Younger offspring: Cute little robots.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring:To watch how bugs can devour a mouse or bird and just leave the bones behind.
Younger offspring: To feel the wiggly thing they used in the sand to shift it into different patterns.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: More about how animals use camouflage.
Younger offspring: How to draw things on a piece of paper and spin it around a stick and make it look like what you drew is really moving. Like animation.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: I’d like to see the water tornado.
Younger offspring: More kinds of projects.
The Tech Museum
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: The little robot that will spell your name with blocks after you’ve typed your name on a keyboard.
Younger offspring: The presentation about magic that was kind of like Harry Potter.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring: Run around in the Imagination Playground.
Younger offspring: To play in the Imagination Playground. And paper chromatography.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: I learned about mutated genes and different illnesses.
Younger offspring: How to make a paper helicopter.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: The experiment to extract jellyfish DNA.
Younger offspring: Other fun projects.
Lawrence Hall of Science
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: The circus exhibits (especially the circus animal dung).
Younger offspring: Animal dung from the live animals in the Bio Lab.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring: Not walking on the tightrope. (It’s a little wobbly.) Petting the iguana was the best.
Younger offspring: Shooting cannonballs through hoops.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: Iguanas have sharp claws, but they’re strictly vegetarian (I think).
Younger offspring: What different animal brains look like. What an animal eats affects what its dung looks like. Also that the first pink lemonade was made from pinky water.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: Spend more time with the critters in the Bio Lab.
Younger offspring: See a real circus where clowns show us how to do the tricks.
Wild Animal Park
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: Cheetahs because they can run really fast.
Younger offspring: Animals near the pools of water.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring: Ride on a quick tram and see all the animals.
Younger offspring: See if the lorikeets can land on your head.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: Nothing I didn’t already know.
Younger offspring: Animals like to stay near the water on hot days.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: Just the animals again.
Younger offspring:To swim and see gorillas and apes and dinosaurs — but not real dinosaurs, robotic dinosaurs! (They don’t actually have these. Yet.)
Turtle Bay Exploration Park
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: Turtles! (The red eared turtle in the tank by the bathroom was the best.)
Younger offspring: The wildlife show in the Paul Bunyan nature amphitheater.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring: Hang out in the butterfly enclosure. It was nice seeing them fly around, and one landed on my leg.
Younger offspring: Make a dam in the water play area.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: People giving nature presentations sometimes want to be clowns. (There was a joke with a fake snake before they brought out the real snake.)
Younger offspring: About how turtles swim — they use their arms and legs like people do to move through the water.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: Check out how the Sundial bridge tells time.
Younger offspring: Some turtle projects — like making a turtle robot.
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: The decorator crabs in the touch tanks because you can see how they put things on their shells to get fancy and maybe to attract a mate in the wild (and to blend in to avoid being eaten).
Younger offspring: Otters playing.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring: If the bat rays aren’t in the mood for touching, look at the sharks and big fish.
Younger offspring: Touching the animals and the kelp.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: Sometimes otters slide like penguins in the snow to get into the river.
Younger offspring: I don’t know.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: The “Jellies: Living Art”. I like the mix of art and jellyfish.
Younger offspring: Sea molluscs and sea cucumbers.
NASA-Ames
Best thing to see:
Elder offspring: The model rockets that they tested in the wind tunnel.
Younger offspring: How a rocket ship blasts off.
Best thing to do:
Elder offspring: Weigh yourself on Mars.
Younger offspring: Watch the video about how to eat peanut butter and honey in space.
What I learned there:
Elder offspring: Gravity makes a big difference in how things work.
Younger offspring: The display with information on all the planets still listed Pluto. I like Pluto.
What I want to see/do next time I’m there:
Elder offspring: Play the moon rock game. (That computer wasn’t working when we went.
Younger offspring: There were no projects or crafts to do. They should add some.
Silly fish!
Fish cant drive buses. They go around in tanks!
Next time you take the offspring down to the Wild Animal Park, I recommend the Photo Caravan Safari tours. We were there a couple of weeks ago, and feeding rhinos and giraffes is quite an experience. I also learned a lot. It’s expensive but worth the money.
Since they like going to museum’s so much, please tell them that we will say “Hi” to Charles Darwin for them tomorrow at the Field Museum in Chicago.
And maybe they will have one of those cut-outs, where I can look like I have a big beard like Mr. Darwin did.
I wonder if the Museum Shop will have bowler hats?
If you’d like to parlay Younger Offspring’s predilection for projects into a lucrative consulting gig, lemme know. Shouldn’t be hard to get Y.O. on salary.
Donalbain,
You shouldn’t let fish drive when they’re tanked.
Oh, I looooooove the exploratorium. It was as responsible as anything for my interest in learning. I always have loved the room where one side makes you look tiny and on side makes you look big. Just the kid in me I suppose.
Summer’s not over yet. You still have time to go to the SF Zeum (http://www.zeum.org/). Afterwards you can ride the carousel, go ice skating or just run around the park.
I remember taking my niece & nephew to the Exploratorium when they were about the same age as your kids. We had a lot of fun.