April 2008

Going Places: Explore Trees at the Science Center

By Taryn Zier

In a month that celebrates Arbor Day as well as Earth Day, include an indoor experience with your outdoor adventures. I suggest the Exploring Trees Inside and Out exhibit at Pacific Science Center. With hands-on, tree-themed activities, it is a nice way for kids to have fun and learn a little about nature in the process.

An environmental education project created by the Arbor Day Foundation and the Dimensions Educational Research Foundation, Exploring Trees makes its first stop in a three-year national tour at Pacific Science Center. And this small but interesting exhibit seems tailor-made for the Pacific Northwest.

Exploring Trees encourages children to use their senses – all but taste, that is – to connect to trees. However, when my kids, Nathan, 3½, and Caitlyn, 1½, saw the sizeable play structure in the middle of the exhibit, learning about trees was put on the back burner. Drawn like squirrels to a nut tree, they spent the majority of their time exploring the hollowed-out log and tree trunk, climbing on the netting, peeking through the holes and going down the slide into a flutter of leaves.

Within the play structure, there is a green space that emulates the sensation of photosynthesis, yet the children in attendance during our visit seemed mostly to appreciate it as a good hiding spot. In the heart of the tree trunk, Caitlyn enjoyed turning a wheel connected to colored, fluid-filled tubes that illustrate how water and nutrients move up and down the tree.

Next in order of importance for my kids was the blue-screen activity, where children dress up like birds, butterflies, squirrels or owls and, through the magic of special effects, watch themselves fly over a forest or jump from tree to tree. Nathan made an adorable owl onscreen, but Caitlyn preferred traipsing around the exhibit adorned with the butterfly wings.

If the kids give you time for the rest of the exhibit, there is a station to take in the scents of nature – household items of the yummy variety like maple syrup, chocolate and cinnamon that come from parts of trees. Children can also use sound wands to listen to screech owls, tree frogs, cardinals and even falling leaves. Parents with young children will appreciate that both of these stations have a special place for the littlest participants to access the buttons and lift-up flaps.

Exploring Trees effectively plays with scale, making miniature things larger-than-life. Nathan enjoyed the jumbo acorn, into which you can crawl and pull a rope to see how a tiny acorn might begin to become a mighty oak tree. There is a giant bird’s nest with oversized sticks and robin’s eggs (most of which end up getting toted off to the play structure). And there is a station that magnifies cross-sections of acorns, leaves and even a honeybee’s leg.

In the arts and crafts area, kids can color a picture and hang it on the wall. There is a spot to build birdhouses out of simple, three-dimensional puzzle pieces and a magnetic puzzle board to experiment with the four seasons. The ambiance is pleasant, too, with several tree-painted panels lining the exhibit and pinecone- or acorn-shaped stools to plop down upon if you get tired.

During our visit, the educational activity stations were attended mostly by older children, ages 5 and older, as the little ones gallivanted on the play structure. Like other exhibits that use hands-on activities to teach, the amount younger kids learn about these forces of nature will largely depend on the parent’s involvement.

While probably not a destination in and of itself, Exploring Trees is great coupled with some of the other activities at Pacific Science Center. It offers a nice break from the regular exhibits, where kids can have some unstructured playtime, and a retreat for young children with older siblings who want to spend more time on concentrated activities.

Arbor Day, on April 9 this year in Washington state, was created to inspire people to plant, nurture and appreciate trees. After seeing Pacific Science Center’s Exploring Trees exhibit, planting that tree will seem a little more special.

Taryn Zier is a Seattle writer and mother of two.

IF YOU GO

Location: Pacific Science Center, 200 Second Ave. N., Seattle

Dates: Feb. 9 - May 4

Hours: Weekdays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Tickets: $11 for adults, $9.50 for seniors, $8 for juniors ages 6-12, $6 for children ages 3-5, free for children under the age of 3 (tack on another $4 to see an IMAX® film).
Spring Fling: Special Arbor Day activities for children 8 and younger April 9 -13, including pony rides in the courtyard, Dr. Doo from the Woodland Park Zoo, face painting, talks by bug experts, animal sing-along songs, animal crafts and springtime activities; no extra charge.
Information: 206-443-2001; www.pacificsciencecenter.org

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