Museum of Discovery in Little Rock
The museum is wonderful to roam through. They had a travelling exhibit called Grossology. I think we saw something similar in New Orleans at the aquarium. The exhibit talks about different aspects of the body and how we get all of those smells, sounds, and oozing of fluids that kids just love to laugh over. They also had another section that talked about the human body. There were several hands on exhibits that showed the effects on a person's lungs on cigarette smoke, how we walk and move our bodies, and what makes each of us individuals.
Throughout the museum, the exhibits had easy to follow instructions telling the visitor how to operate each exhibit. Then there was an explanation stating the scientific principles behind each hands on activity. This came in handy when Megan and Will asked questions and I tried to remember all of my science classes!
So Will's favorite part was the Tinkering Studio. The whole purpose of the Tinkering Studio is to use items that you can find around you home to build and create. They had a variety of recycled materials for you to create and build. The project of day was a flying machine. Will did several different modifications before his flew. Megan was able to get hers made the first time, but did not think it was good enough and had to remake it. Will showed his flying machine to the man in charge, he was really proud of it!
Will's even made it to the display wall! (The flying machine is basically a paper plate with a hole cut out in the bottom and brown paper taped over the cover. The air pushes from the bottom of the pie plate to the brown paper bag.)
Here is Megan showing one of her modifications. She was not pleased with the final product!
After going through the entire museum we had about 20 minutes to wait for the Tinkering Center to open. We found these fabulous ottomans in the lobby. I had to get a couple of poses on them!
Megan came up with the idea of making a bridge between two of the ottomans. She was one the orange one while Will got the yellow one. I think Will needs to get longer legs. He looks ready to fall off!
I wonder if she wants one of these in her room? Nope, it wouldn't fit!
P.S. I just remembered an extra little something to add to my post. Will, Megan and I went to a demonstration on Tesla coils. The volunteer had set up two Tesla coils. He then used a music program to show how the coils worked at different frequencies. Megan did not like the demonstration, she thought that it was too loud and so she exited as soon as it was over. Will thought the demonstration was awesome. He even raised his hand with a question during the question and answer session. Will ended up asking his question after the session was over. He wanted to know how the Tesla coils lit up when the music played. As you who know Will would understand, he wanted to know EXACTLY how the music sent from the computer program to the coils. The volunteer, after about four attempts at trying to explain and then me finally telling him to go into specifics, he explained EXACTLY how the Tesla coils worked. It was really funny the looks I was getting when the guy explained everything to a six year old. You would think in a science museum that this type of thing would happen everyday! :)
