The Free-Ride offspring spent Thanksgiving with the Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment, cutting into the opportunities for the Free-Ride parents to ask them about matters scientific. Nonetheless, the sprogs have been doing science-y things on their vacation from parents. Two highlights:
- A visit to the Griffith Observatory, where they not only took in a planetarium show, but also weighed themselves on Mercury. (Both elder offspring and younger offspring weighed in at zero -- clearly Mercury is the right planet to visit after a heavy Thanksgiving meal!)
- A visit to the California Science Center. The sprogs especially liked exhibits on animation (not only because there were lots of funny cartoon clips, but also because there were interesting how-tos) and on how airplanes fly (since, as elder offspring explains, "you can make anything fly if you know how to shape a wing"). They also took in an IMAX film, Deep Sea 3D, which featured fish, jellyfish, sharks, Humboldt squid, octopus -- lots of old favorites.
There was also some feeding of ducks, I'm told.
Meanwhile, the Free-Ride parents took a hike.
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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:
Last weekend, the Free-Rides visited the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Here are some of the animals we saw:
Yesterday afternoon, I attempted to talk with the younger Free-Ride offspring about erosion. It would seem, from our conversation, that it is not just rocks that can erode -- recall of material learned in science class can also erode, as can patience.
Today, the Free-Ride offspring have lots of questions. Maybe science can answer some of them.
Younger offspring: Why do the stars shine so bright?
Elder offspring: Why do snails come out on rainy days?
Those two places were my favorite places to go to when I was growing up. I especially liked the Griffith Observatory because of the planetarium shows, Lazarium shows, the giant pendulum, the huge teslacoil (Is that still there?), the seismographs, and so on. Yes, my nerd flag flew high even then.
My first ever IMAX experience was the film, Chronos, by Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson. It still remains my favorite IMAX film.
You chose terrific places to take the sprogs in L.A.