During our visit to the Museum of Science, we were asked to visit four (4) different exhibitions and perform the hands-on activities. We visit catching the wind, conserve @ home, energized! and investigate. All these exhibitions had activities to perform along the information which was helpful to see how the theory we learned in class relates to the practice.

The first exhibition I visit was Energized; this exhibition focused on sunlight, moving water, and other self-replenishing sources that generate cleaner energy with fewer negative side effects. Along the exhibition, the viewer has the opportunity to perform hands- on activities and informative content that make us realized and think twice about the power we are using in our everyday. We use energy every day and for everything from powering our personal devices to even powering our buildings and unfortunately, our main source of energy is coming from sources that will eventually run out and are not good four our planet. Energized, makes you want to pay more attention toward this type of energy and rethink about the options and abilities that renewable energy has and the benefits this could bring us. It was nice, to see and have some hands-on activities to do since we have discussed this topic in class several times. Having this topic here again is a reinforcement of what we have learned and possibly seeing it from a different perspective other than the classroom.

The next exhibition was Catching the Wind; this was just around the corner from energized which makes a great combination with the amount of information that both share. This display was an informational exhibition about wind turbines and how they are slowly but surely appearing more frequently in both the news and along our highways. Along this exhibition, the viewer learns how wind turbines generate electricity, in addition to it there is also an activity called “Wind Power Challenge” which consist of choosing a location and a turbine type, and then see if this can power your home, business or community. A great “game” to see and understand the process of a wind turbine and its advantages.

Continuing through the Museum of science moving on to the upper floors, we can encounter a variety of exhibits all very interesting and diverse great for anyone that would like to learn a few different topics; however, the next exhibition I visit was conserve @ home. This exhibit was all about teaching us how to save energy and its importance, and how this can also help us to save money on our daily basis by only doing some modification to our energy spending routine. Through the exhibition just as in the others there are some hands on actives, but there are some examples of how turning everyday things into more usable ones can help us recycle and repurpose the use of materials we daily encounter. One of the activities “turn your energy into light” (see picture above) I found to be very interesting because it has three different types of a lamp such as LED, Incandescent, and CFL which will lead up while you turn the wheel around giving it the power to turn on. The different activities offered at this exhibit will teach anyone who comes to it different ways to make the most out of energy consumption, time, and money.

The next exhibition I visited is called Investigate, this exhibit without a doubt was one of my favorites for it the particular way of displaying its information. This exhibit is set up in a unique way as it looks as you are entering a house, starting from the living room and learning the different scientific process.  Then we encounter the bathroom which shows two sinks that allow you to investigate if water always drains in the same direction in this hemisphere and then a toilet which was one of my favorite parts because it shows it in section (cut through half) allowing you to see how its process works when your flush it (this link will show a video I recorded during my visit Video). Something that we use every day and we do not really think about how it works. Moving on the “house” continues to develop into a kitchen kind of shape, a garage and a front yard each of these with different experiments, hands-on experiences and a broad amount of information that allow us to learn and appreciated many different aspects of science.

In conclusion, without a doubt the museum of science was a great experience to put in practice the theory we have learn through class, add some information and learn more while in a different set up rather than the classroom.