Field Trip to Science City

Gess had a check up at the hospital which we live over 2 hours away from.  Since we just started back to school and I needed some science field trips for my curriculum I thought we might as well find something fun to do while we were in the "big city."  I was actually amazed to find that Union Station had a Science City section and it was only about 5 minutes from where her appointment was.  Since Science City covered just about every aspect of science, I figured it would be the perfect place to go.

As you are heading down the hall to get to the entrance they had a really fun display of the evolution of the roller coaster rides at Worlds of Fun.  Here is Gess checking out the one from the 80's. She has never been to a theme park, with some of her issues with loud noises, crowds and lines I have been afraid to spend the money only to find out she can't handle it.  Now that she is older I think she will do just fine so we may have to try that out next year.

The first thing you come to when you enter Science City is the Melody Park.  Here is Gess making some music.  She is actually starting piano lessons on Tuesday but I never pictured her playing piano quite like this!

Next we headed to the Astronaut Training Center where she tested her physical strength.

She also got to go in a simulator and land the Space Shuttle.  She was usually unsuccessful but we did it together one time and had a success (though they mentioned it was a rough landing).

They had some of the rooms to look like a mock shuttle.  She found this one to be humorous.

They also had a Crime Lab where she got to use the computer to make a sketch of the suspect.  

We then took a tour inside the human body.  

The City Park was also fun.  We had to place the walls to make the tunnel for the boat to go all the way through and then test it to see if it worked.  We had a success!

The part she seems to talk about and remember the most was the Dino Lab where she not only got to check out some fossils...

...she got to dig for some too!

The KC Rail Experience was pretty neat as well.  You got to enter boxcars and trains and even act as if you were the engineer.  Here is Gess operating the train.  They really had it sound and feel as if it were moving!

The science curriculum we are studying actually had to do with the weather and unfortunately the extreme weather display was closed!  She still got to make a cloud.  Every time you pushed this down a puff of cloud was released.  (The camera didn't really capture that.)

We also went to the Science on a Sphere (that you can see in the background above) which not only let her view the earth, the sun, and the other planets but she got to see the atmosphere so I counted that as part of our weather study.  Sometimes it just displayed the image but they also had movies on the various topics as well, but Gess only had patience for one of those. The first picture is her looking at the sun, the other is the atmosphere.

We had a great time at Science City.  It was very hands on which made it worth the time and the money.  We will most likely go again sometime, after the weather display opens back up of course!