Arendal Science Museum

A few days ago, we went to the Arendal Science museum, which was small, but fun. The exhibits were explained in both Norwegian and English, so we were actually engaged, rather than stuck trying to figure out what to do at each exhibit. I think the goal for science museums, my favorite type of museum, is to get the visitors thinking about science. This one met that goal.

One of the exhibits demonstrated the Pythagorean Theorem, which Porter has been studying in math class. If you look at the length of the A and B sides of the yellow triangle and square each of the two sides, you get the amount of blue liquid shown. Next, take the C side and square that.

When you twist the thing around, the liquid from A and B fills up C squared perfectly, thus giving you a visual demonstration of the Pythagorean Theorem.

This exhibit was fun too. Using the ropes to steer a hook, we had to pick apart the light house, and put it in the boat. I especially liked this one because it was fun and taught you things at the same time. I think the idea of this exhibition is to get you to use your communication skills, work together, and discover the physics of how to move the hook. Porter and I thought up a way to communicate efficiently. Each rope was identified as either the North, South, East, or West rope. By saying things like,"Move the hook East and down by easing the West rope," we successfully pulled the lighthouse apart.

About half way through our time in the museum, we were told that there was a bubble activity outside. When we went out, a woman was demonstrating how to blow bubbles. A large loop of rope with two sticks on the top was supposed to be dipped in the soap.Then, using the sticks to draw apart the loop, I could watch as the wind blows out the bubble. I was intrigued by the bubbles because I had never seen them so big before. And I see bubbles often because when the water for dishes is heating up on Sila, I use my fingers and blow bubbles with dish soap. When I did that in the past, I never even imagined such enormous bubbles. They were a little mesmerizing to watch. The pale, rainbow colors swirled, transfixing me as the large bubbles drifted away.

Another fun feature was this human hamster-wheel like thing. When I ran, lights and noise-makers were powered by the spinning wheel. When I stepped off, I was out of breath and I had only turned on a few dim lights. A similar thing was a crank, that when you spun it, it lit up different light bulbs. I barley lit up the first one and my arm was weak for ten minutes after that. It shows you how much power lights need.

In this picture, you see Porter and me looking up at orange sticks, our hands outstretched. This was a game where these eight sticks were dropped in random order and you tried to catch them to test your reflexes. We had competitions during which we tried to catch more sticks than the opponent. It was fun. I think that this is an interesting way of testing reflexes.

There were a lot more exhibits, like a mannequin, where you could remove and replace its organs in order to learn more about human biology. There was another one where you put your hands around two cylinders for the display to read your heart rate. Then in the glass case a heart shot blood out at the rate of your pulse. It was a fake heart and fake blood, but it was still creepy. Another was a white wall with a grid on it. Randomly, one square would light up at a time. When they appeared, you tried to whack them. It was like a vertical version of whack-a-mole. There was another exhibit where you pulled yourself up in a chair, using different numbers of pulleys. This is to show how pulleys make pulling things easier but slower.

I really enjoyed this science museum. I only listed a fraction of the exhibits that we explored in our four hours there. I think I enjoyed this science museum because you could really engage with the ideas. It is certainly more fun than reading out of a boring textbook the history of the guy who thought of a science idea. I am glad we went to this small and intriguing science museum. -JackRabbit