Field Trip!

As you are probably aware, Paris has a number of museums.  However, they have more than just art and history museums.  They also have a few amazing science museums.  Two of these are geared toward kids and allow them to do hands on experiments.

A few weeks ago, I took the kids to the Cite de Sciences & de l'industrie.  It's the biggest science museum in Europe with 5 floors of fun and excitement.  There are sections on light, sound, the universe, images, energy, transportation, man and genes, technology, math, health, a separate section for 5 to 12 year olds.... and much more.  They also have a giant sphere (think Epcot Center) that contains a 1000 foot IMAX screen, a decommissioned submarine that you can tour, planetarium, a separate cinema showing special 3D films, an aquarium...  Seriously, this place is huge.  Here is a picture of the outside.  The building itself isn't that impressive from the outside. 

But here's how it looks from the inside:

This is the main floor.  There are 2 floors up and 2 floors down from here.  I let the kids choose what they wanted to see.  First up was light.  There were probably 40 or so experiments with light, vision, and optical illusions that the kids could play with.

 Here was a mirror booth.  I have no idea what Nick is doing.

 This was a great experiment with a bow, a metal plate, and sand.  By rubbing the bow on the edge of the plate, the vibrations caused the sand to jump and to form into patterns.

The area was fairly dark (since the experiments were light related) so it was tough getting good shots.  We had fun in that section, though.  We spent well over an hour there.  We decided to grab a quick drink before heading to another area.  Beside the concession stand was an alien cutout where you could put your head in to take pics.  Naturally, we did.

Don't they look great?  For probably the 100th time, I said to my kids, "You're weird... just like me" and then we smile.

I do have to say one thing about the concession stand, though.  The kids each got a drink and I grabbed a bottle of water.  I went to pay with my credit card, but their machine was broken.  I only had enough for 2 drinks, so I put my water back and got drinks for the kids.  After taking this picture, we walked past the concession stand and the guy working there said, "Mister.  Come here.  You can have this" and he gave me the bottle of water for free.  Where does that happen????  Paris.

We went to the sound area next.  Again, tons of fun experiments.  Since they were sound related, the pictures would've been pretty boring.  There was a place where you could whisper to someone about 50 feet away with the help of 2 large dish shaped objects pointed at each other.  We also got to talk to the Mona Lisa:

We also spent a little time in the math area where we had to guess fill rates and volumes of cylinders.  There were some fun uses of shapes and bubbles, too.  We also hit the health area briefly before we were told that the museum was closing.  Below, the kids are trying to pedal around this cylinder while keeping upright.  It was much tougher than it looked

Overall, we spent 3 1/2 hours in the museum and barely scratched the surface.  We will definitely be back.  It was a fun and educational experience for all of us.

Here is a fun view of the IMAX theater from inside the museum.