Dear friend,
This is the third post in my Florida Field Trip series. You can find the first two here:
(I thought I had posted #2 back in November, but apparently I never hit the post button! So, it's actually a new post! Check it out!)
Our family just signed up for an Orlando Science Center annual membership, which is $125 per family. For a large family like ours, this is quite a deal, especially since it includes parking, which is usually about $5. Regular daily admission, which includes entry to the giant screen IMAX movies, is $17 for adults, $16 for students with ID, $11 for children ages 3-11 and free for under age 2. You can calculate how many trips it would take your family to break even on an annual membership. For us, it is just two, and we've already been twice!
There are four floors of great exhibits. We haven't had the time to fully explore all of them yet, but the weather and Dino Dig rooms were my favorites on our last visit. I know we'll be back to spend more time in those. We have also enjoyed petting the baby alligator and playing in the physics room.
The Kids' Town is a perennial favorite in our family, especially the Orange Grove.
OSC has a very special exhibit, The World of Mechanical Muusic, which is just about to end next Sunday, January 9. I went this week with my kids and thought it was well worth it. Here is the blurb from the OSC web site (www.osc.org): 
"
Do you still think of a music box as a trinket or novelty, something pretty to look at for a while, then placed on a shelf or stored and forgotten? The up-coming exhibit at the Orlando Science Center might just change your thinking! This new exhibit called The World of Mechanical Music; Science, History, Craftsmanship and Art will take place at OSC beginning November 13, 2010 through January 9, 2011. Mechanical Science, where it all began, will prelude this musical interlude. Visitors will be given hands-on, self paced lessons in the basic physics of sound and instrumentation, as well as the physiology of hearing. They may even learn how to tell the difference between music and noise…. if there IS a difference! Next, visitors will step back in time to the Victorian era where they will enjoy a glimpse into lifestyles and leisure activities of the day. They will be escorted by docents to hear, see and experience live musical entertainment just as ears heard it over 100 years ago!"
In case you are wondering what kind of instruments they are talking about, there are vintage music boxes, metal disk players, mechanical bands, organ grinders, player pianos, and much more. The guide will play most of them for you on the tour.We have seen both of the current IMAX movies, The Forces of Nature (about volcanoes, earthquakes, and tornadoes) and The Ultimate Wave: Tahiti. Both films interweave scienctific principles, nature, and world culture and were highly educational. The visual effect of the huge screens is stunning. Just a heads up, though: the dramatic natural disasters in the first film can be alarming to small children, and the second film shows bikini clad surfers which may offend some people. I think an IMAX on chimpanzees is coming soon, but I don't know when. The current films are playing at least through the end of January. You can see video trailers for both of them on the web site.
We enjoy the Orlando Science and we're glad we signed up this year. The kids have been asking me for months to do this. It's going to be our main source of science field trips in 2011. We hope to see you there!
Virginia Knowles
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