The children and I have always loved the Science Museum in London, but this week we were taken to a whole new level of LOVE. We had such an amazing day!
So what blew our minds when we visited? Well it was their fantastic theatrical science experience “The Energy Show”.
We knew we were going to be in for something special when we first arrived and saw the warning signs on the front row seats!
The show was great, the children and *cough, mumble* myself and Grandma clapped and shouted out in frenzied excitement, awe and wonder as we watched Annabella and Phil, two futuristic science students, race against time to prove their knowledge of energy through a series of live experiments. It really was an amazing mix of theatre and science!
The show is officially for 7 years + as it does contain very loud bangs, fire you can feel the heat from and quite a lot of science. I think though that younger children who enjoy theatre would be fine with it as they give you plenty of warning with a countdown to each explosion and the characters, set and general theatrics are so engaging it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t understand all of the sciency explanations.
The show was excellent at was bringing the excitement of science to life, and what child (and parent) isn’t going to be inspired after watching methane bubbles explode or after having dodged the hydrogen rockets that were being fired into the audience or after seeing a child in the audience hold a highly explosive gas-filled balloon that could take his head off if he sneezed! (Don’t worry, I’m sure that balloon was just a fake, yikes!)
Here’s Annabella performing an experiment with methane bubbles, this was little Crumb’s absolute favourite and it brought back lots of memories of my older brother setting fire to his farts when he was a teenager. (Not information I shared with my children for fear of the consequences!)
I asked my camera-shy boys what they thought of the show…
It really was a pull you in and get you involved kind of show that we would thoroughly recommend. Have the children been inspired and dug out their science books at home? Oh yes! Are they wanting to raid the kitchen cupboards for bicarbonate of soda and vinegar? Of course they are!
Don’t despair if you’re unable to get down to the Science Museum to see the show this summer as excitingly it plans to start a national and international tour in the Spring 2014 and if you do manage to get to there don’t forget to pop in to the museum’s free 3D workshop to make some 3D glasses and go on a 3D trail through the museum. And of course there’s the fantastic Launch Pad area full of lots of hands on opportunities for children to experiment and investigate.
Have a blast!
Disclosure: We received complimentary tickets.