A Trip To Science City

One of our first outings around Punjab was to Science City. This is a huge complex dedicated to everything science. There is a huge aerospace hall, IMAX movie, lots of hands-on exhibits, the body experience, solar pavilion and dinosaur park. This trip got a big thumbs up from both students and teachers.
Last year, Tom took his “Terrific Ten”, i.e. the 10 students who stayed behind two weeks to check it out. They had so much fun there, Tom decided to put it on the schedule for this year. Like last year, everyone had a great time. All of the YES students know a lot about science but have never interacted with it. This was a great chance for them to understand the knowledge they already have and learn new concepts and ideas about science. The most debated exhibit was the evolution of man, which started a whole lot of questioning about the origins of humans. Seems that in Islam, just like Christianity the debate is the same.
We took advantage of all the exhibits: the Flight Simulator, the fantastic laser show (everyone loved that), the “Magic of Flight” IMAX movie, the 3-D show (so-so) and all the fun hands on activities. The Virtual Hall was a new one this year and we really had fun there. Lots of computer generated activities to interact with like moving giant marbles and flowing worm-like blobs around a big screen, standing in front of a big screen and having virtual butterflies land on you and lots, lots more. The Fun Science hall was a blast too. Riding a bike to generate light, optical illusions, funny mirrors, spinning wheel activities, the spinning tunnel (go through it fast or throw up) to name a few of the fun things we did there. The students could have stayed there forever. They were having so much fun. The Body exhibit was an eye opener for many. Here you could go inside a giant heart and see all the parts of a heart, get your blood pressure checked, see all the organs inside your body, test your vision, learn about AIDS, see the skeletal system at work on a bicycle, and find out about chromosomes and genes. Again, students could have spent all day in this hall too.
After our fun indoors, we headed outdoors in the humidity and heat to the Dinosaur Park. Here are life sized replicas of the beasts of yore. Lots of photo taking went on amid the T-rexes, triceratops and stegasauri before the heavy drops of an oncoming rain storm got us running for covering. The monsoon downpour hit right as we got under cover. After about 10 minutes, the rain let up a bit and we ran across the main plaza to the entrance for some gift shopping and ice cream. By the time we were done with that, the rains had let up and it was time to go home. Wet, yet happy, sated on ice cream and a yummy lunch of chicken burgers, we headed back home singing and clapping the whole way.