Museum of Science Boston: A rainy day afternoon of discovery

As regular readers know, Boston is a frequent destination for me as a tag-along traveller because the head office of the organization Steve works for is located just outside of this historic American city. Many people (locals and visitors alike) have asked me over the years if we have visited the Museum of Science. It gets raves. For whatever reason, we never got to it. This last visit found us in a hotel a few blocks away from the museum. Proximity combined with a rainy, hair-standing-on-end windy day made it the perfect time to visit.

Review: Museum of Science Boston

First off, the Museum of Science is huge! Getting the most from a visit requires a plan. We did not have a plan. It’s organized on three levels with seven wings total. We spent close to three hours visiting and did not see it all. A more focussed approach would have helped. A general entry ticket ($28/adult, $23/child) gets you entry to all of the exhibit halls. There are other attractions such as the planetarium and butterfly garden, 4-D Theatre and IMAX that require an addition flat-rate ticket of $6. We stuck to the exhibits.

The museum hosts several presentations throughout the day. We started our visit off with the Lightning presentation and also saw the Science Magic demonstration. Both were fun an informative.

You could craft an entire weekend getaway at this place. Even though many of the exhibits are geared to the younger set, we were completely engaged. We bypassed a few things that were more on the juvenile side.

Making science interactive

What I enjoyed most about the museum is that it is interactive heavy. Most of the exhibits have you engaging in some way. The Hall of Human Life has you grab a barcode bracelet that you can use at several stations to compare your data to others. For example, you can compare your opinions (based on the science) about whether youth should be allowed to participate in sports with high concussion rates. Another station analyzes your natural walking speed and foot structure. I found out that my foot arch is so high it was off the analysis scale! Steve found this hilarious for some reason. His foot was remarkably average (which is why he has no trouble fitting shoes and buys too many of them).

The Space exhibit was very cool. I’m not really a space nut, but I got a charge out of seeing the gloves Neil Armstrong wore in space. The no-gravity simulator offers a sense of what weightlessness is like inside a replica space station, and there are fascinating video presentations by astronauts about their personal experiences in space.

Another highlight from our visit included seeing the world’s largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator in action at the Lightning presentation. It can produce more than a million volts of static electricity.

Due to the vastness of the facility, even though there were a lot of people visiting at the same time, it didn’t feel crowded. The main hallway looking out onto the Charles River is quite lovely and airy when you need to take a break. We didn’t eat at the café, but other reviews indicate that it’s reasonably priced and the food quality is decent.

We are now part of the chorus that says, “If you’re visiting Boston, you really need to go to the Museum of Science!”

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