Friday July 16

On Friday we went to Science North, a beautiful center for kids of all ages to explore and learn about science. It is now run by the same organization that runs Dynamic Earth, in yesterday’s blog. Both of these facilities were delightful from the lack of crowds to the staff, to the way the subjects were presented. After yesterday, we were both looking forward to what we would find today. We walked into Science North, were met by a greeter, or ticket taker, and talked through what we would see. She also offered us a taped tour by a geology professor at a local university. It was right down Liz’s ally, we took it, and he was great. He told us the entrance tunnel was blasted out of the “Sudbury Ore” or the local rock of the area. As we walked along through this mine-like entrance, he explained how the meteor hit and its impact on the geology. He pointed out various features in the rock as we walked through. When we got to the end, there was a change in the floor and the professor talked about how there was a fault on the earth at this location, along the line in the floor. The harder finer rock on the right, and sandstone on the left. In between, just over my head you may see some small crushed rock, from the grinding action where the fault meets. Click on the picture to make it bigger.

We continued on, exiting the tunnel, and began climbing the spiral walkway. About halfway up, the professor talked about the day a backhoe operator was digging at the site, he was expecting to scrape the thin soil off the top of the rock, and instead his shovel went down deep. They called the professor over, and he examined what they had just found. It was a crevasse between the two plates of the earth. They were prepared to blast it away for the footings of the walkway, but instead the professor worked with the engineers over the weekend, and came up with a different solution. They would redesign the walkway, and make the cleaned out crevasse part of the science center. It is open except for a couple large boulders about the size of a recliner, wedged in between the two. It is made even more dramatic by the fact that the walls of the science center are glass, so you can see where the fault continues outside.

There were 4 levels to the center, the first floor featured a 4D film of bush pilots, and the second a butterfly gallery. The third floor contained a Science lab in a theater in the round. The seating went up a floor with about 5 or 6 levels of seats. In this, we saw various “bluecoats” their interpreters come in and do demonstrations’ on scientific principals. It was kind of a live Mr. Wizard. The first was a presentation about that magical substance – air. The small group of adults and kids experimented with air pressure using all kinds of common materials such as a dry cleaning bag and a garbage can with a hole in the bottom. The young man who was demonstrating filled the garbage can with fog from a fog machine and the kids got to send “smoke rings” all over the theater, targeting the adults with a puff of air and fog. To demonstrate the Bernoulli principal, the demonstrator had people blow over a small paper cup containing a ping pong ball. By increasing the air pressure over the cup, it decreased the pressure in the cup, lifting the ping pong ball up. He explained that this is how, with the shape of the wing, Orrville and Wilbur Wright were able to get a plane off the ground.

The other “talk” we attended in the theater, later in the day, was about bats. Before the young lady taught us about various aspects of bats, she and other bluecoats rigged a cage of fine bird netting inside the theater. As she continued her talk she went to a wooden box, got out a soft bag and extracted two sleeping brown bats, Rufus and Buddy They were both found in houses and obviously, not wanted there, so they were given to the museum. She gently woke them up and released them inside the net cage. They would fly over and light on the net, she would retrieve them, release them and they would fly somewhere else. It was fun because they were quite close to us, yet contained.

Other things we did at the museum were to pet a skunk, who had just been wakened, was drowsy and snuggly. J We took part in a walk where we exited the museum, walked down the street and over to a lovely 20 plus acre wetlands area filled with cattails-right in the middle of the city. We found out that there are actually 30 lakes within the city of Sudbury! The people who lived in the surrounding apartments had beautiful scenery, at least in the summer time. Back to the wetlands walk, we walked a good distance on the wooden boardwalk and stopped at a platform to catch water dwelling creatures. Having gathered a large bucketful, we walked back to the museum and up to the water lab where we had started. We examined the bugs, and a couple small tadpoles, under microscopes. We saw water striders, nematodes, tadpoles, of course, mayfly larvae, and some sort of water flea.

Upon finishing the wetlands walk, we joined the naturalist who did our bat talk and she talked to us about the frogs in Ontario. Many of them are the same characters we have at home. There a couple different types of frogs that actually have glycol, an antifreeze, in their system to allow their bodies to freeze for a few months at a time without bursting their cells when they freeze and thaw. Others just burrow down in the mud or under piles of leaves and become dormant, but don’t actually freeze. It was fun to see which voices matched which bodies. Some of the smallest bodies actually produce the biggest sounds!

There were displays with many of the local fauna including snakes, fish, a very stinky porcupine and a beaver. We checked on the beaver earlier in the day and he was sleeping on his back with his feet up in the air. It was very funny to see because beavers’ front feet are tiny and their back feet are huge, rubbery and webbed. As we were leaving we walked over to see if he was doing anything interesting. One of the bluecoats had the den door open and was trying to hand feed him kale. He was a rather rotund fellow, the beaver, not the bluecoat, and much more interested in a slice of sweet potato than the kale. We have seen several beaver pelts since we’ve been up here and saw a beaver swimming at Lake of Two Rivers, but this was the first one we’ve seen up close with his stuffings where they belong. He was quite handsome, for a beaver.

This museum, like Dynamic Earth, was a very well thought out museum doing a very good job of engaging adults and children alike. It is certain to capture the imagination of many youngsters with the many, many aspects of science presented.

Credit to my traveling companion for most this blog post