The "Life Then and Now" Hall at The Perot Museum of Nature and Science
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, located in Dallas, Texas, is a popular destination for both educational and recreational visits. It opened in December 2012 and is named after the Perot family, who offered significant contributions to its founding. The museum’s mission is to inspire minds through nature and science, my review of it is below.
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HELP! KIDS EVERYWHERE!
Kids? What are kids doing at museum with so many children’s exhibits? I need a manager!
The place was packed with school children on field trips just before the holidays. I almost turned around once we entered the door; it’s not that I mind children, but it was just A LOT of children. Since my friend and I had already paid for the Uber to the museum, we decided to stay and see if we could knock out a kid or two. (Kidding)
Once you enter go up a series of elevators past a lobby filled with children.
Bye-bye and good riddance!
At the top of the escalators, you see a large T-Rex that you can also spot from the highway, which is why I wanted to visit in the first place. Then off ot the escalators we ran into a lot more kids… not so great… but also some really cool exhibits starting on the 4th floor.
You start with birds and then transition to dinosaurs, and they have quite a few dino skeletons. It brings me back to when I was a kid seeing dinosaur exhibits; they were always my favorite. When you grow up, no one asks you who your favorite dinosaur is anymore. That’s sad. It’s stegosaurus, by the way.
The next exhibit was the one I spent the longest time reading because I feel like I haven’t learned as much about it. It was the history of telescopes. Then there was a display on colors and light reflection. That one didn’t go so well for me, being color-blind. Whomp!
At that point, the kids started to clear out. I may not have seen the colors, but I saw the light. Hallelujah!
It was just in time to go down to level 3. I got to feel like a grandpa next because I enjoyed the gem and mineral hall a lot more than I thought I would. It was beautiful. ‘You kids get off my museum lawn!’ We bounced through the tornado simulator and a couple of other exhibits, and then it was down to level two.
Down on level two was the engineering and innovation hall, which was my favorite. It was the area most geared toward the kids I was trying to avoid, but I quickly became one of them. I made giant musical notes out of light. I connected circuits for electricity. I watched kids battle robots (not enough kids had left; should I have battled the kids myself?). I watched flags go through a series of tubes that looked like lots of fun…but once again, I would have had to knock out a kid or two to play with it myself. I’ll let the kids have their fun…this time. Around the corner, there was a fun exhibit that compared accents. All words sound the same in Boston, really.
Then I realized my friend and I were running out of time, so we ran through the rest. Yes, the Perot Museum may be geared toward kids and may be teeming with them, but it’s an impressive one. My only complaint…besides the copious amount of chilren…is they could use better signage on how to enter.
