Saturday, August 9, 2008

Milwaukee Museums

One of the first places we visited in Milwaukee was the Milwaukee Public Museum. Here the kids enjoyed learning about Africa, Asia, Europe, the Arctic, South and Middle America, and the Costa Rican rainforest. There was even an exhibit which showcased the turn-of-the-century streets of old Milwaukee.

The kids favorite part of this museum was the Puelicher Butterfly Wing, where you can stroll among many species of free-flying butterflies. One of the museum's downfalls is that there's not a lot of natural light making it very dark inside, so it's difficult to take good pictures.

DISCOVERY WORLD
A giant clock stands at the entry way to a room full of gears at the Discovery Museum

Our second museum visit was to Discovery World located on Milwaukee's lakefront. This museum features interactive exhibits, laboratories and areas to explore energy and water. There are lots of high-tech resources and virtual simulations.

The kids and I enjoyed the HIVE, which stands for Human Interactive Virtual education. The experience is what you might expect to feel like if you were inside a video game. Our virtual trip felt like we were being flown through a solar system. Also fascinating to look at was the expanding sphere that was situated between two staircases. The sphere would continuously open and close, while being lit up by colored lights.
The museum also hosts marine and fresh water aquariums that mimic Wisconsin environments and is home to the S/V Denis Sullivan, a three-masted schooner.
Some of the highlights for the kids were laying on a bed of 3000 nails and the flight simulator, where Ethan perfectly landed a huge military aircraft.
It was very difficult to get the kids out of this museum. They would have easily gone back for a second day if we had the time.

2 comments:

Mad Queen said...

I thrive on this stuff... kids learning, exploring, exposing them to new ideas and experiences... wow. I love that Mac can say he actually has laid on a bed of nails... how cool is that?

Stella said...

I was at a museum with my cousin. I was laying on a bed of nails and he was supposed to press the button to let me down. Instead, he thought that it would be fun if he pressed the button so that I went up and down and up and down over and over! I found out that if you are just laying on a bed of nails, the pressure is even and does not hurt. But going up and down made many little holes in my clothes and the pain was intolerable.


~Stella