Pacific Science Center

This day was the most anticipated for the girls!  Yeah science!!!  We started off by getting on the Bremerton to Seattle ferry.  Once we were on the ferry, I pulled out the Insect & Butterfly Exhibit Worksheets and explained them to the girls. 

 http://www.pacsci.org/schools/field_trips/pdf/insect_pre_visit.pdf
http://www.pacsci.org/schools/field_trips/pdf/butterfly_032306.pdf 

Because I home school, I made this an educational field trip as well.  Plus, Brynn could return her completed worksheet and get credit for it to replace the science stuff that was going on at camp.  If you go to the Science Center, I suggest using these worksheets.  Their website has many more helps for other exhibits as well.  We're definitely going again!  However, next time we are NOT taking the ferries.  $59 for ferry costs alone!   Ridiculous.  And once you are off the ferry in Seattle, it's a 2 mile walk to the Science Center.  It's great on the way there, but after spending hours in the Center, the last thing you want to even think about is a 2 mile walk ahead of you to get back to the ferry!   We got plenty of P.E. in that day:)

I loved the Insect Village!  This is where we started on our worksheets.  Terry & I split up with the girls and went to work.  I love the worksheets!  We learned a lot about various insects.  I was so engrossed in the work that I forgot to take pictures.  Oh, well.  That just means we'll have to go back!  

The insect I liked was the Blue Death-Feigning Beetles.  They play "dead" as a defense against predators.   They are a beautiful metallic blue color.  Scientists don't know much at all about these beetles.  It makes them that much more intriguing to me.

Termites are an ugly insect.  However, I learned that the King & Queen can be about the size of your little finger.  The Queen can live up to 20 years and lays about 300 eggs a day!!!   That's just disgusting.

There was also a place where you can see "edible" insects in food.  Ick.  I'll never look at a cricket that same again.

After the Insect Village, we went into the Butterfly Exhibit.  This was my favorite part! Beautiful foliage and warm air with hundreds of colorful butterflies everywhere.  Sometimes they were on the ground (we had to watch our step!), sometimes on people experiencing the exhibit.   If they landed on you or the ground, we were instructed to just let them be.   We weren't allowed to pick them up or touch them.  

The slide show I put together is mostly of the Butterfly Exhibit.   Next time we go, I'll have the other camera that holds a lot more pictures than the one I took.  I could SO take more than 64 pictures!  And I'll remember to include the Insect Village.

Butterflies live only one week.  During that time, they mate & lay eggs.  Eggs then hatch into caterpillars.  The caterpillars eat the plant they hatched from.  A few weeks later, they begin making their chrysalis.  In the chrysalis, the caterpillar changes into a butterfly.   The Butterfly Exhibit doesn't have a single caterpillar in it.  They have all the chrysalis's imported and place them in the chrysalis window box.  This is because you have to have a special permit to contain caterpillars.   How do they control the butterflies from laying eggs?  I asked an employee.  She said every species of butterflies has their own kind of plant that they prefer to lay eggs on.  If that plant isn't available, they won't lay any eggs.  So the Butterfly Exhibit doesn't hold ANY plants that any of the butterflies have a preference to!   I found that quite fascinating.  

The Butterfly Exhibit has a chrysalis window box.  You can watch the chrysalis's wiggle sometimes.  If you're lucky, you might get to see a butterfly emerge!  We saw some wiggle, but no emerging butterflies.   The butterflies that had emerged that day were flying around in the box.  I saw one poop!  Did you know that butterflies' poop is pink?  Yep.  The white towels they lay on the floor of the box were covered with what looked like pink or reddish water color paint.

There's your science lesson for the day:)   It was an exhausting, yet fun day!    

Here's the website that gives you information about every exhibit.  There are lots of Student/Teacher worksheets.   There's plenty of  information that is great if you need to research for science reports, too!

http://www.pacsci.org/exhibits/