Fun and Educational Day Out For Everyone! (Glasgow Science Center)

Member Name: motherwellmum

Product:	Glasgow Science Center
Date:	14/10/08 (187 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Suitable for all ages

Disadvantages: none

I visited the Glasgow Science Centre today with my 16yr old niece, my 8yr old son and my 5yr old daughter. My children absolutely loved it.

We arrived about 11.30am, there was a long queue but it moved reasonably quickly, I am guessing I queued for about 10 to 15mins. Beside the queue there are tables and chairs where the children can sit and colour in or draw a picture, this was great as I am sure you will know how impatient children can get when having to queue. It is an unsupervised area so you will have to keep an eye on the kids, which is possible whilst queueing. The admission prices for adults are £7.95, children aged 3 up to 15yrs £5.95, under 3's go free. You can pre-book online or purchase there on the day. I opted to buy tickets there as I had Tesco Clubcard Days Out vouchers which can be used for the Science Mall. I should also mention the carparking costs £3, you buy a token at the exit of the Science Centre.

On arrival you are given a sheet with information on what's on at what time throughout the day. There was a good choice of events, some on a drop-in basis, others have limited places so you have to go to the floor of the event (the science mall has 3 floors) and put your name on list if it isn't full. We had chosen to do Nina and the Neurons Trail, DIY Detectives and egg drop. Unfortunately DIY detectives was full but we did manage to get our names down for the other two. It is worthwhile bypassing all the exhibits when you enter the mall to put your name down for events before they are full.

We headed up to the 3rd floor where a drop-in event had started called Jays Animal Encounters, we had missed the beginning of it but even at that this was the highlight of our day. Jay gave the children an informative talk about snakes, reptiles, skunks, hedgehogs and more in a fun way. The children and adults got to touch the animals I have mentioned, some of the children were even brave enough to let a lizard lick their noses!

After Jays Animal Encounter I let the children wonder round all the exhibits doing what they wanted. There was plenty interactive activities for the children to get involved in, the children were never bored. I don't want to tell you about them or I might spoil your fun, with 3 floors of hands-on exhibits there is plenty to do.

The Nina and the Neurons Trail is aimed at under 7's but my 8yr old was happy to get involved. The children were given a sheet with a list of the neuron characters from the Nina and the Neurons kids tv show, they had to go round the science centre finding pictures of the characters, once they had ticked them all off they could go back to the lady and she gave them a sticker. A simple activity the kids enjoyed.

We took a packed lunch so can't comment on the cafe in the Science Centre but I can tell you there are table and chairs set out for people to eat their own lunch.

We didn't manage to do the egg drop event as we had signed up for the 4pm one and decided to leave about then to avoid heavy traffic on the way home. We did watch a little of the earlier session, the children had made containers to protect their eggs in the event of a fall, then they dropped their eggs from the top of a set of stairs to see if their egg would crack, there was alot of laughter and cheers in this, you could see it was great fun, someone did actually manage to protect their egg.

The Science Centre is clean and well laid out with lifts and toilets. The toilets were a bit dark for my liking but were clean. I would recommend you visit and see for yourself. It's a full fun day out which is educational at the same time.

Summary: A great fun-filled day out for all the family