January 25, 2014 - Museum of Science with St. Peters

On Saturday, January 25th, ICO volunteers Cassie, Jeff, Jenna, and Maria C. met with a group of 11 kids from St. Peter’s Teen Center and St. Peter’s staff member John for a trip to the Museum of Science.

We started off with a quick name game and intro to the museum. Many of the kids had been before with school trips and had some specific requests for the day, like the electricity show.

Once at the museum, we split in 2 groups and started exploring the exhibits. Some favorite exhibits of the day were The Science in the Park and the Hall of Human Life.

In the Science in the Park exhibit, we exercised not only our muscles, but also our minds. We used a giant lever to see how much force it would take to lift 500 pounds of sand, twirled like ice skaters and compared our speed with one leg extended versus it tucked in, raced balls on 4 different slides to determine which was faster, and so on. We also got a dose of physics and learned about why it hurts to step on one nail but why it doesn’t hurt to lie on a bed of nails, the kids were dying to try it out.

The Hall of Human Life is a new exhibit where visitors get wristbands and register them with their ages and sex. You then can walk around the exhibit and measure different things (ears, height) or play different games (moving a ball through a maze by shifting your weight) and see where you are compared to other visitors. The graphs they showed made statistics interesting!

By request, we went to the electricity show as a group before lunch. We learned basics of static electricity and the advanced theory of why you’re safe from electricity in cars. They even played music with different lighting bolts! For anyone who’s never been to the museum, this is a must. However we were a little disappointed that the show’s leader didn’t ask for volunteers. That would have been a fun way to interact with the museum.

We had a quick homemade lunch of sandwiches, fruit, pretzels and cookies. Cassie underestimated the group’s love for PB&J but everyone enjoyed it!

Jeff noticed that a life animal show was starting just as we were finishing lunch so we rushed across the museum to see some local owls, snakes and birds.

And then came the highlight of our day—an Omni Film! The IMAX movie took us on a trip to West Papua, and followed a young island boy throughout his time at sea. Along the way, he discovers the diversity of marine life, but also begins to understand the importance of protecting it.

We rounded out our day in typical ICO fashion with a closing activity led by Jenna. Suffice it to say that loud noises and bright screens or flashes really entertained these kids. All of them chose either the IMAX film or electricity show as the highlight of their day! Overall, it was a fantastic trip and definitely recommended for future winter outings. Big thanks to the Museum of Science community outreach program and to all the volunteers!

A link to the photos from the trip:

https://www.bostonico.org/apps/photos/album?albumid=15385028 

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