Scienceworks

Today, we headed off to Scienceworks.

For those people who arent from around the Melbourne area, I will tell you a little bit about Scienceworks. It is located in Spotswood, Melbourne and it is just a short distance from the western side of the Westgate Bridge. It is run by Melbourne Museum, and is essentially, an interactive museum for children, and is run much like a Museum. Everything there is designed for children. It is also attached to the Melbourne Planetarium. I went there as a child many times and I remember begging Mum and Dad to take me there every school holidays from when I was about 5 until when I was about 11 (I was way to cool for Scienceworks in Grade 6) It is much like a Museum in the sense that it has permanent exhibits, as well as travelling exhibits and special events on occasionally. Most of Scienceworks is interactive and child sized, and they run a special program designed for school children aged 4-16 but adult groups and older teenagers are allowed to visit too.

Within Scienceworks, we visited Nitty Gritty Super City, which is designed for preschool children through to grade three children (3-9 year olds)

We got to do many things including the chance to use a digger to dig up coloured balls

We got to read out the weather and see ourselves on camera whilst doing so

We made pretend coffees with a machine that made noises just like a real coffee machine

We served in the cafe

And we also looked at the spectacular leggo version of Melbourne

And we worked on a construction site, where we participated in all aspects of the construction. doing some hoisting to get the blocks up to the construction site

And we used the conveyor belt to get the blocks up to the construction site too, by twisting a wheel.


Then we headed to the planetarium to watch a short movie on the roof called "Tycho to the Moon"

Then we headed to the Explorasaurus exhibition

And then we hopped back on the bus and slept all the way home!

This was my first excursion while working in childcare, so I cant really say whether it was the best one yet, but I would definitely reccomend it. The people who run Scienceworks are friendly and willing to help, the planetarium staff not so much, but overall it was a constructive and positive outing!
We definitely could have spent at least 6-8 hours there to have a good go at everything and see it all. But alas, children have to sleep and early childhood educators have to have their lunch breaks!
8 out of 10!