SCIENCE! museum

So a good friend of mine is really keen on science. So keen on it in fact that she studied it to become a science teacher to boot. Not only was she known for sharing her insights on a hike when she saw a weird bug or something the like but she also tried her darndest to get middle schoolers excited about all things science while student teaching. You can imagine how quick this would take even the greatest enthusiast to wits end though when trying to instill passion for science within an adolescent. Out of desperation she started giving out bonus points (if I remember my story right) to any kid who would just yell out the word "SCIENCE!" while looking through a magnifying glass or reading something from the textbook. I am not sure how this "experiment" worked out but it seemed like a valiant effort if nothing else.

I thought of her this last weekend when I went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This is my 3rd time there, my first time being about the age that teachers were making me yell out their subject areas like explictives to get me enthused about learning. Though I am most definitely an art museum goer-type, this place is truly awesome/cool/interesting enough that I indeed felt like shouting out "SCIENCE!" more than once while walking through.

Truly this is a place where "learning is fun!" and not in a School House Rock sort of way either. This is beyond that. I thought my favorite bit would be the rocks....

Or perhaps learning about flightless birds in the taxidermy animal learning area...

That was until, though, I got to the special T-Rex exhibit. Would that my wee nephew Tom could have oooohed and aaaahed over the animated, roaring dinos and ogled over the T-Rex bones! Man was that stellar! Lucky for me, I didn't notice the "no pictures please" signs until I had already snapped a few...

So yeah. SCIENCE! can be fun stuff . It just takes a bit of vision or someone to bring it to life sometimes to reach a few of us. But well worth it once it does.