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Museum of Science & Industry
We walked from a discount lot near the museum. The museum grounds were beautiful.We spent the last couple days up in Lincolnshire for my cousin's wedding. Their entire celebration was beautiful, and my kids stayed up late last night dancing & celebrating. After breakfast, everyone checked out of the hotel and headed their own separate ways. We decided to spend one more day in the city, and so we headed back to Chicago to check out the Museum of Science & Industry.
When I was a kid, the Museum of Science & Industry was my favorite museum. While I do remember things like airplanes hanging from the ceiling, what I mostly remember was some section about perspective. They had a checkered floor that went up on an incline, but they painted it so that it didn't look like an incline. It was fun to run up and down. They also had giant chairs to sit in.
Anyway, I wasn't sure what the museum would be like today. Unfortunately for us, we don't have a museum membership. People in Des Moines who have a Science Center membership get free general admission to the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago, I believe. For us, it was $42 to buy the tickets online for
Circus Exhibit
At the Museum of Science & Industry our family of 4 (that's a discount from the $50 it would have cost us to buy the tickets in person). However, Oliver really wanted to go into the mine exhibit. The mine, we learned, is the original exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry, and it dates back to the 30s. It's now one of a small handful of exhibits that cost an extra fee. The U-boat and the LEGO areas also cost an extra free. We added on the mine tour for an additional $50. Add in the discount lot we parked at ($12 for about 4 hours, if I recall correctly), and we were out more than $100 for this museum trip. Ouch.
The kids enjoyed most parts of the museum (thankfully). Because we don't get to world-class museums very often, I guess it was worth it. Their favorite section was the Idea Factory. It doesn't cost an extra fee, but you do have to walk up and get (free) tickets to come back at a specific time. In the Idea Factory, kids can move magnetic blocks with a crane, balance different weights on a large scale, move large weights with different pulleys to see
which one is most helpful, shine different colored lights together to see what colors they make when mixed, move gears on a giant gear wall, build with large foam blocks, and play with a plastic ball contraption.
While we waited for our time at the Idea Factory, we checked out the farm section. The kids climbed up into a tractor. They also watched a video of a calf being born, and they got to try to attach a milk machine to a fake cow's udders. We swung through the circus exhibit really quickly. There, they played with fun mirrors (which I think I remember from when I was a kid) and put their heads into a hole to see their distorted image reflected back (I'm pretty sure I remember that part, too).
After the Idea Factory, it was time for our mine tour. Now, this exhibit doesn't accommodate strollers or wheel chairs. I could be wrong, but I believe this exhibit was grandfathered in because, obviously, today we can't make attractions that aren't ADA accessible. To get to the tour, we had to walk up a set of stairs. We walked through caves, and its walls felt like
Idea Factory
At the Museum of Science & Industry, the kids raced the tractors down different roads. real coal. We went up (or down?) an elevator, and we learned how these mine elevators would swing free a bit. If you were standing at the edge, you could get really scraped up on the rocks. That's where the phrase, "got shafted," came from. We learned a little about black lung disease. Water trickled down one wall of the cave, and we learned that's how they kept some of the dust at bay. In addition to benefiting the miners, it also helped prevent accidental fires (coal dust in the air would be flammable). Speaking of flammable (inflammable?), we saw how miners used to check for pockets of methane, which would also be combustible. They had a little lantern on their belts surrounded by a screen. While it normally burned yellowish, it would burn bluish in the presence of methane down in the mine. Our tour guide took the lantern and put it in a glass box, and she shot some methane gas at it. There was a small, blue explosion that erupted from the lantern. The kids loved it! After that, we climbed into an old train/mine cart. It drove us a ways, and then we climbed out and
hiked through more cave. We saw some equipment from the 30s, and then we went to a section with equipment from the 60s. The 1930s equipment looked so dangerous, and we learned that children usually did the most dangerous jobs (like lighting fuses and running away). Once again, I could be wrong in my assumption, but I think the reason they don't also have a section added with modern equipment is because they can't add to the exhibit without having to comply with modern ADA laws. I believe part of old attractions being grandfathered in means organizations/companies can maintain their attractions but can't expand them or redesign them without making the necessary changes to be ADA accessible. This was something I was once told at Disney World years ago.
For the rest of our time at the museum, we checked out a weather section, a fairy castle exhibit, and a train section (which was underneath the hanging airplanes I'd remembered). I never did find the section on perspective, so it might have been removed to make way for newer exhibits, or else it was in one of the many sections we didn't make it to this trip. We got
to do and see so much, but, honestly, we didn't even see half of what the museum offered. Next time, we'll start from the top floor to see some sections on biology and genetics!
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