Planetarium

Jack and I went to the Discovery science museum and Planetarium in Bridgeport today. Another parent had mentioned it to me a little while back and I've been wanting to go there to check it out. She'd said the museum itself wasn't much but the kids loved the Planetarium.

We ended up getting there about an hour before the first Planetarium show, so we had plenty of time to see the museum. There was a trick shot basketball exhibit, lots of cool science stuff for kids where you pedaled a bike to make light bulb glow, or made drums and percussion instruments play by waving your hands in the air. There were lego things to build, and smaller versions of the Apollo Lunar Module, and more things of that ilk.

We built houses out of fake bricks and knocked them over, made a system of funnels and chutes and sent marbles down them, threw basketballs over our heads at the hoops. We "talked" to Alexander Graham Bell, and looked at cool light patterns through prisms, and guided an astronaut on a video surface of the moon. Jack climbed up into an astronaut space suit and grinned through the helmet as a I took a picture.

Some exhibits were "under repair," some were blocked off entirely, some just appeared incomplete. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and there were relatively few people there. The gift shop was a small section of the front counter with $2 trinkets that had very little to do with the museum itself. (Killer whale water pistols?) Jack happily bought a $2 bottle of slime, however, and another one for Kate. They love them! But you know, it was kind of sad. We had fun. And there weren't many people there. And it's clear the place isn't doing very well. Ten years from now? I don't know.

At the Planetarium, we saw a cool film about the Hubble Space telescope and some of the pictures it's been able to take of the universe. At the end was a Q and A and Jack raised his hands twice to ask questions, once about black holes ("Has a spaceship ever been in one?" No.), the next time about ...I forget. Maybe life on other planets, a followup to a question I asked. We then left and got food at the cafeteria. Which was a vending machine where we each had a bag of chips and split a sour patch kids. Tasty!

Second film was aimed at younger kids and it had this star going around the galaxy meeting other stars and planets and stuff. It was kind of hokey at first but ended up being pretty good. The Hubble one was for ages 8 and up and might have been a bit technical for Jack (though he had good questions). The second was for younger audiences and better for Jack, although several 4-or so year old kids had to be taken out, which by the way is why I didn't bring Kate.

So then we bought Jack's slime, and he picked out some slime for Kate, and we headed home. Pretty good way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon, even if not everyone does it anymore.