Science Centre?
I brought my niece, a very intelligent and somewhat perspicacious child, to the local Science Centre. She had a lot of fun, and although she was disappointed at certain things, showed unusual and precocious maturity in choosing to highlight the positives in her report to her parents and grandparents.
She was very impressed by the Omnimax theatre, although she was sad at not getting a planetarium show; she enjoyed the Wild Ocean film that we got instead. She asked to see stars, but since it was daylight, accepted the fact that the observatory (small and often treated to horrible back-scatter from the high-rise public housing and industrial buildings nearby) would not be showing her anything of the sort. So we had a look at the Astronomy section.
First real disappointment. Shoddy exhibits, disabled functions, uninspiring and almost star-less. Not what you would call astronomy at all; more like a consequence of economy, it seemed. I felt sad for her, and for the Science Centre as it once had been.
The rest of the place wasn't that bad. We hit the Kinetic Garden next, with lots of things that young and agile people could have fun with. She had fun, I had fun. What was disappointing was that some of the exhibits were rather badly maintained, encrusted with lime and dirt and sometimes out of alignment. She took it in her stride. I am sometimes very happy for the innocence of youth, but her experience could have been better.
The local Science Centre sees a lot of throughput. For a population (including tourists) of perhaps 10 million (or more), it loses outright to New York and London though. I wonder why exhibits are so much better maintained in other cities which have the same claim to be world-class. I question the validity of 'world class' as an appropriate term to describe a city with 3 universities of which the best seems to be ranked about 30th in the world, and whose Science Centre and museums and other institutions of cultural knowledge transmission must be ranked about 200th or so.
But you know what? My niece enjoyed herself, and so I did too. We had fun. We could have had more fun without the tackiness and the missing pieces, but we had enough fun for one day. I just wish that we had a proper Science Santa...
She was very impressed by the Omnimax theatre, although she was sad at not getting a planetarium show; she enjoyed the Wild Ocean film that we got instead. She asked to see stars, but since it was daylight, accepted the fact that the observatory (small and often treated to horrible back-scatter from the high-rise public housing and industrial buildings nearby) would not be showing her anything of the sort. So we had a look at the Astronomy section.
First real disappointment. Shoddy exhibits, disabled functions, uninspiring and almost star-less. Not what you would call astronomy at all; more like a consequence of economy, it seemed. I felt sad for her, and for the Science Centre as it once had been.
The rest of the place wasn't that bad. We hit the Kinetic Garden next, with lots of things that young and agile people could have fun with. She had fun, I had fun. What was disappointing was that some of the exhibits were rather badly maintained, encrusted with lime and dirt and sometimes out of alignment. She took it in her stride. I am sometimes very happy for the innocence of youth, but her experience could have been better.
The local Science Centre sees a lot of throughput. For a population (including tourists) of perhaps 10 million (or more), it loses outright to New York and London though. I wonder why exhibits are so much better maintained in other cities which have the same claim to be world-class. I question the validity of 'world class' as an appropriate term to describe a city with 3 universities of which the best seems to be ranked about 30th in the world, and whose Science Centre and museums and other institutions of cultural knowledge transmission must be ranked about 200th or so.
But you know what? My niece enjoyed herself, and so I did too. We had fun. We could have had more fun without the tackiness and the missing pieces, but we had enough fun for one day. I just wish that we had a proper Science Santa...
Labels: City Life, Entertainment, Relatives, Science
etched with acid at 1:22:00 am
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