Virtual Field Trip: Museum of Science and Industry Chicago

Mad Natter and I recently spent about a week and a half visiting with Hammie and Buppa in their suburban Chicago home, and while we were there, we had a lot of great opportunities.  From visiting with some of his cousins to spending days playing baseball with his Buppa in the yard, we had a lot of fun. We found a lot of fun things to do that were good field trips, too, and so I want to take you with us!

Now, the first thing to mention is that we did not see the entirety of MSI - not by a long shot. There are far too many things to see and do for us to manage it in one day - between Mad Natter's need to touch all the things and the rest of us not wanting to spend our days pinging all over the museum and back, seeing as much as we did is a real accomplishment!

We started in the Genetics and Chick Hatchery. Our plan was to try to cover as much of the main floor as we could, and save the upper and lower levels for another visit. The Chick Hatchery is, and always has been, one of my favorite parts of the museum, but it's so dark that it's hard to get pictures.  However, we did get some nice time in looking at fruit flies, and two variants of them - ones with white eyes instead of red eyes, and some with plain torsos instead of striped!




From there, we went out into the Transportation Gallery, where we saw a model of the city, complete with train running through it, trains of various generations along the walls, and even a real jet soaring above us!


 Mad Natter and Buppa both enjoyed the Science of Storms exhibit, and Mad Natter even got to be part of the experiment about vortexes - which was perfectly timed, as two days later we saw tornado watches!

 Follow along with us as we move through some of the rest of the museum!

Mad Natter and the Vortex Experiment

Exploring Main Street USA

Learning about light

Shadow butterflies!

Watching a presentation about the U-505 with Buppa

Learning what a telephone handset is for

Just hanging out.

"Sleeping" in the U-505 Bunk

Up Periscope, Buppa!

Mad Natter - OUT.

With any amount of luck, this post has been at least a little helpful for you in deciding if visiting The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is for you. Please visit Gifted Homeschoolers' Forum's section on virtual field trips to see if there are any other interesting places you might like to go!