Pascal A.
Yelp
Overall, I think there's a lot of wasted potential here. It looks super well funded but lacking details and forethought. I'll give some examples: there's a massive cylinder next to the stair case area, i wondered about for a while. After going inside and seeing the roots which didn't even extend 1/10th of the way up and reading the text, i didn't quite understand why such a massive structure was needed for such a insignificant exhibit. Or take the anatomy level. There's plenty of bones and bodies all over the place without explaining anything about what makes a cheek bone significant, or a pelvis or any of the other bones or organs. very little explanation, no fun facts, no connection to why these things are useful for scientists and doctors to know about. the giant baseball figure: the text explains the that the upper torso is counter moving the bottom legs. empty spots all over the place. the 1 useful fact given about the impact of smoking on the heart is something everyone already knows about. what about the impact of diet on your arterial walls, your endothelial cells or your heart and all the risk factors for metabolic syndrome?
The text information is generic, basic, obvious, dry, lacking inspiration. I really feel, that if you took the local high schooler's 50 best science projects for the year and filled the room with them, it'd be much more interesting and you could learn more from it. That would also cost orders of magnitude less and you wouldn't have to charge 28$!
To be frank, many of the exhibits don't make sense. one area said, design your own animal, with cells displayed on the screen, you could move the dials around and the colors would change but it just didn't make an ounce of sense to me. and no explanation anywhere, nowhere. Massive floor to ceiling Screens everywhere, with cells floating around. there's very little you could actually learn.
An entire robot area dedicated to learning about the basic principle of input and output. Perhaps, it was well suited for a 5 year old.
In the climate change area, there were a few facts (emphasis on few) given about the differences between 1.5C and 2.0C and the most interesting thing they could say was to talk about permafrost increases without explaining anything about that or why that's important. Most of the massive displays with the dials on the wall had graphics that were in-decipherable. what was going on there? did i miss the text or something? The build your own taco calculator even had information that was wrong: Corn produces more calories per acre than almost anything else which is the exact opposite of what the calculator stated. We shouldn't be optimizing for land use anyways because water is a far more precious resource.
All the text has been translated into Spanish, so if you don't know any English and only know Spanish then this is a great museum for you.
Here are some positives: they did have a nice place for kids to play in, to play with blocks. and it's all young kid friendly and toddler friendly. The staff were helpful and kind. There was plenty of parking and the validation worked, 5$ yay! Also, there was plenty of restrooms and they were easy to find. I think kids could have a lot of fun here. and well, it is interactive.
For adults, this place works better if you approach it as an art exhibit. We did get to see a lot of colorful stuff and it was still entertaining. Also, if you just want an indoor place to take some toddlers, then this place has really nice AC.