Museum of Science and Industry

Today was a long, but super-fun day at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  With the weather not wanting to cooperate this Labor Day Weekend, we decided to do a little something special indoors.

On the way up this morning, we ran into a major rainstorm!  It was raining so hard, we were lucky to drive 40 mph!  So thankful that we moved through it, because it was a little scary!

When we got there, the kids were so excited!  There was so much to see and do!  This was the first place they wanted to go.  It was all about weather.

But, first, we had tickets to go to the Coal Mine.  Since they are all so crazy about Minecraft, that was the place they chose to go.  We bought them a general admission ticket and gave them the choice to pick one extra.  They could've chosen a movie on the Omnimax or a submarine, but they really wanted to go to the Coal Mine.  We got to ride on a mine car/train thing.  They thought that was cool.

We got to see lots of the equipment they use and then we ended up in a control room and got to see real coal.  They thought it was awesome!

Once we finished there, we went back to the weather section.  This was probably the coolest place in the whole museum!  Especially for my weather nerds. :-)  I mean, who wouldn't love to see a 40 foot vortex?

Madie tried out the balloons.  You fill them up with heated air and they rise.

Here they played with ripples in water.  There were pools above us and the light went through them and reflected on the floor.  They could make the ripples go fast or slow.

This was a really neat thing.  I don't even know how to describe it.  It was a touch screen and you could move the pictures around.  It would show the picture using different kinds of light - ultraviolet, regular, x-ray, etc...  The kids REALLY liked this one!

They all tried it out and moved all the pictures around, so they could see the differences in them in the different lighted boxes.

This was also in the weather area.  Not exactly sure why, but it was all about colored light.  Using different lights would change the color of your clothes.

They had these pods where you could move the panels to make a vortex of your own.  Livie never figured out how to do it, but Noah did. :-)

This was about friction.  Each circle was covered with a different surface on the bottom of it, so you would push a button that would push them with equal force and some would go far and some wouldn't, depending on the bottom of it.

Each of the kids got a chance to go INSIDE the vortex, which they were thrilled about!

Livie had to hold the string on a balloon to see how it would rise.

We checked out the farm area a couple times.  This part was right outside the food court and I knew I had to take a picture of that!

There was a whole section about DNA.  The thing I loved about this museum is that it had so many interactive things.  Lots of computers screens with different things to check out, lots of movies, games, etc...  Noah was checking out one on Down Syndrome here.

In the DNA section they had a chick hatchery.  It was so cool to see the chicks starting to hatch.

There were 3 baby chicks that had just hatched and 2-3 eggs that were moving around with small holes in them, where the chicks were trying to peck their way out.  The newly hatched chicks looked almost dead!  But, they were just really weak and trying to learn to get up and move around.  They would stand up and wobble around, then lay back down again and close their eyes.  It was almost like they were too tired to continue on at times. It was really neat and so sweet to watch.  The kids LOVED this!

There were several chicks whose feathers were all cleaned and puffed up and running around.  A couple of them kept coming over to Noah and Livie and checking them out.  :-)

Once we left the DNA section, we went to the Transportation wing.  We got to check out lots of trains and even climbed into a real 727!

They had a HUGE display, with the Chicago Skyline, that had trains running around it.  I told Pete his Uncle Bob would LOVE this part!

Isn't this train awesome?!

There was a toy-making section that had a rock-climbing wall.  Another favorite!  They love climbing rock walls!

There was another floor to the weather area, so we went up there and checked it out.  This dealt with air flow.  They could make the air come out of the tubes faster or slower, and put balls in the air to see how the air flow manipulated the balls.

And, who doesn't love a giant plasma ball?!

Or fire?!  We went to so many different parts of this museum and I definitely think the weather center was their absolute favorite of the day!

We checked out the old-time downtown area.  It was set up to have store fronts and a road like you would've found in 1910.  They even had a silent picture going, to which Noah said he wanted his 10 cents back, because it was B.O.R.I.N.G!  I told all the kids that their great-grandpa Drexler used to play piano at the silent movie theaters before he became a pastor and they thought that was cool, but not cool enough to stick around and actually watch the movie. ;-)  Noah did like these things though.  They had rings to hook the horses up to and he thought that was neat.

We went into a place about computers.  They each got to buy a necklace that they scanned and were able to make into an avatar of themselves.  They used the necklace to do all sorts of things in this area.  It was pretty cool!

This section was about the future.  Not sure why they had this mist stuff at the entrance to the place, but they thought it was fun, so that's all that matters, right?

They got to see tractors and farm stuff.  Livie decided to take a break inside the tire here. ;-)

And, we had to get a picture on one of the cows, right?

We ended at this special kids section where they got to play with all kinds of things, including water guns and lasers.   Even with these 35 pictures I've posted, you can't even get a real idea of all the great stuff we got to see!  We were there for over 6 hours and felt like we were running through it at times.  We didn't even see everything!  We were all really tired at the end, but had a really great time!  They're already trying to schedule a repeat visit soon. :-)  It was a fun way to start our 3-day weekend!