Melbourne Sights and Sounds: Science Works

One of the places we visited when we were in Melbourne was Science Works. They had a special dinosaur exhibition on called Explore-a-saurus which will be on display until 15 April 2012.

Details

Location: 2 Booker St, Spotswood, Victoria, 3015 (Getting There; Melway Reference: 56 B1)
Telephone: 13 11 02 (Booking and Enquiries – Victoria only); +61 3 9392 4800 (General)
Opening Hours: Open daily 10am – 4:30pm (Closed Good Friday and Christmas Day)
Website: www.museumvictoria.com.au/scienceworks
Facebook: www.facebook.com/scienceworks

Entry fees

Explore-a-saurus: Adults $18, Concession $6 and Children (3 – 16 years) $5. Prices include general entry to Scienceworks.
Scienceworks: Adult $10, Concession* and Child (3–16 years) free entry.

Explore-a-saurus

The exhibition was small and similar in concept to the DinoTrek exhibition that was on at Petrosains a couple of years back. Features:

• dinosaur dig
• control a dino-robot
• make sounds like a duck-billed dinosaur
• open a T-Rex mouth
• re-create the asteroid collision that wiped out the dinosaurs
• various dinosaur exhibits

All in all, kind of fun but not a whole lot to see and you’ll get through the exhibit pretty quickly. The kids will love the dino dig, though.

More about Explore-a-saurus:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ebzfMB5-o

Science Works

This was the really fun part… There are two levels to Science Works. On the ground level, they have:

• House Secrets Exhibit
• Sports Works
• Muck Bunker Stormwater Experience
• Visual Illusions, Perception Deception and the Periodic Table are temporary exhibits

The best part for the kids, however, is Nitty Gritty Super City on the second floor. Intended for ages 3-8 years old, there is a latched gate at the entrance so you can let your children roam freely inside the mini metropolis where they can role play at the cafe, work at a construction site, operate a digger, make music, and more.

The bricks are taken to the base of the wall and loaded into the pulley system or the conveyor belt and sent up to the wall where they are collected by other children who then use the bricks to repair the wall. It was great to see the children of different ages working together to build the wall.

Nitty Gritty Super City is a terrific place to take the children. They’ll entertain themselves for hours and they won’t want to go home. Aristotle had so much fun, he asked to go back the next day. Hercules kept running back to the construction site so I had to “forcefully” remove him or we would end up staying overnight. All in all, the boys had a wonderful time – eight thumbs-up for this one.

Overview of ScienceWorks:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzQbKFVpsQo

There are also lots of terrific free educational resources on the Science Works website available by age and subject. Don’t forget to check out the Discovery Centre, too.

More activities in Melbourne, Australia.