{"id":563,"date":"2008-10-06T16:20:18","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T23:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=563"},"modified":"2008-10-06T16:20:18","modified_gmt":"2008-10-06T23:20:18","slug":"omsi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2008\/10\/06\/omsi\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (Portland, OR)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we were trying to figure out what to do on our one day in Portland during a heat wave, we met some moms in Salem who said we should go to OMSI.\u00a0 To where?\u00a0 To the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.\u00a0 An entity big enough in Portland to warrant its own set of freeway signs.<\/p>\n

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry<\/strong>
\n1945 SE Water Avenue, Portland, OR 97214-3354
\n(503) 797-4000 or (800) 955-OMSI (6674)
\nhttp:\/\/www.omsi.edu\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Hours: <\/strong>Tuesday-Sunday 9:30am-5:30pm (plus Mondays of school holidays; summers open until 7pm)
\nPrices:<\/strong> $11\/adults, $9 kids & seniors, under 3 free.\u00a0 Show your AAA card for a discount.\u00a0 OMNIMAX, Planetarium, some rides & shows, extra.
\nParking: <\/strong>$2 but they didn’t actually charge us for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was dinosaur month and they had a special exhibit.\u00a0 A couple of the dinosaurs moved and roared and it took Miriam a few minutes to believe they weren’t going to jump the wall and come after her.\u00a0 Then she asked to go see them and had fun.\u00a0 Even looking at the pictures as I was writing this, she said, “oh I am so scared” (half kidding) and added “are they alive?”\u00a0 We were there almost two months ago but she remembers…<\/p>\n

\"Cyndi

Cyndi & Miriam<\/p><\/div>\n

They had both full-featured dinos and some that were just skeletons.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam

Miriam & Michael<\/p><\/div>\n

And of course some silly tourist stuff.<\/p>\n

\"Michael

Michael & Miriam vamp for the camera<\/p><\/div>\n

Since we had gone to A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Villiage<\/a> in Salem the day before, I was a little concerned about doing science museums two days in a row.\u00a0 But the places were quite different and Miriam had a blast both times.<\/p>\n

OMSI features an OMNIMAX Dome Theater, a Planetarium, and Laser Light Shows, which all cost extra, so we didn’t go.\u00a0 The Featured Exhibit when we were there was the dinosaurs but now has switched to something else.<\/p>\n

They also have a Science Playground for children 6 and under, which is a large room with places for parents to sit down and watch their kids play.\u00a0 Any child over 3 would be bored there.\u00a0 The Life Science Hall and Earth Science Hall have a bunch of interactive exhibits that range from fun to lecturey to broken.\u00a0 Most were geared for elementary school age children.\u00a0 Some were old and outdated and some of the newer ones were very patronizing.<\/p>\n

They have several labs (chemistry, physics, marine science, etc) there which are mostly for elementary and secondary school aged children.<\/p>\n

Where we spent the most time was Turbine Hall, which, ironically, is free to the public.\u00a0 Here you find all the hands on hard science fun that I experienced at science museums both as a kid and as a teacher a couple of decades ago.\u00a0 Miriam’s favorite was the Earthquake House, a little cottage on a moving platform that rocked and rolled to the sounds of Carole King (I felt the earth move under my feet…no, really).<\/p>\n

Accessibility: <\/strong>The building is two stories and there are stairs, escalators, and elevators.\u00a0 There were plenty of places to sit and rest around all the exhibits and the hallways and lobby.\u00a0 As I recall, the bathrooms were pretty stinky (air freshener or cleaning product fragrance) but not completely unusable.\u00a0 Some of the labs (the chemistry lab mainly) emitted very strong chemical smells that wafted out the door into the Hall. Something was going on in the building at large because I had a headache and the typical spaciness\/fatigue that comes with exposure.\u00a0 I can’t pinpoint it though.<\/p>\n

For a 3 year old, this is a great place to go once in a great while.\u00a0 I hear that older children (in the 10 year range) love the place.\u00a0 And they seem to have enough fun to keep teens occupied too.\u00a0 A toddler would have enough interesting things to keep busy.\u00a0 It’s the 3-6 range that might be a bit weak, but then we didn’t explore every area they had.\u00a0 It certainly was a good way to stay cool on a hot day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we were trying to figure out what to do on our one day in Portland during a heat wave, we met some moms in Salem who said we should go to OMSI.\u00a0 To where?\u00a0 To the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.\u00a0 An entity big enough in Portland to warrant its own set of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[100,99],"tags":[98,51,112],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-museums","category-places-to-go","tag-oregon","tag-photos-family","tag-photos-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}