Sound of the Universe

• home education

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

Last Saturday (1st of May), the parents-in-law took us to the Gravity Discovery Centre in Gingin.

It is well worth a visit. Once they got over the toy corner, the kids, especially 5yo, had a great time checking out the exhibits in the main building, particularly the chaos balls, the “pod racer” (big metal sphere with two magnets being held just off it by wires), and the giant gravity funnel that you can spiral tennis balls down. We raced up the leaning tower and my legs are only just recovering (I blame the extra 10kg+ I was backpacking the entire day), and we went on a “solar system” walk, which is an incredibly scaled down model of the entire solar system that from the sun to Pluto is a bloody long walk, we got as far as Uranus before we turned back. The kids were getting tired and my jelly legs were being pathetic and not holding up.

JJ and I particularly enjoyed the soccer ball building with its art exhibit, though he got more time to browse around than I did. The kids looked at the pictures but there was a lot of reading available and they weren’t going to read it or stay still long enough for me to be able to do so.

Then there’s the Aoelian Harp. I don’t know what anyone else heard but I thought it was interesting. 5yo reckons he heard “a god noise”. Mother in law (Catholic Christian) asked if it was a beautiful noise, and wasn’t quite sure to react when he answered a very decisive no.

I have no idea what he heard.

Whatever it was, it didn’t impede his joy of looking at stars and planets for real through the giant telescopes later that night, not just in books (particularly his beloved space popup book) and online. They got too tired though so we didn’t get to stay to look at the moon when it finally came up.

We’re planning a return trip in a couple of years.

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