Last weekend, Mr Z and I went along to the Science Museum to watch and review The Energy Show. This is a live show taking place on the stage of the Science Museum I-Max and running throughout the summer holidays until 31 August 2013. The show is recommended for age 7+ but as Mr Z at 5 does have an interest in Science and tends to enjoy live shows, I thought we would give it a try.
1. Scenes from The Energy Show
2. Waiting for the show with some pringles!
3. Giant plane in the transport section
4. Wall of cars (the transport rooms have always been some of Mr Z favourite!)
The show is all about two scientists Annabella and Phil who have been set a challenge by their professor to show all the different forms of energy in only minute. Throughout the show you see them learning to work together, experimenting to see how they can show each type of energy (of course this involves loads of cool results and blowing things up!) and concludes with their final exciting demonstration.
Their experiments include fire bubbles, blowing up balloons, static electricity coming through someone’s finger tips and shooting rockets into the audience! The explosions can be quite loud and you do feel the heat. We were sitting near to the back but still felt some of it! Mr Z was a bit scared at some points during the show – mainly when one of the characters conducted electricity through his body and some zapped out of his finger! He kept asking me is it really real, so this did give an opportunity to try and reiterate the science involved.
The show was the first time he had learned anything about all different kinds of energy, as previously he only knew about getting energy from eating food! Even if some of the explainations would have no doubt gone over his head at this stage, I felt its really good for him to be introduced to some of these concepts in a fun way, as some of the information will end up being absorbed and gives him a good start to build on later. It was also a fun day out and something really different to do during the summer holidays, as it’s not often you see live shows with such explosive effects!
I would recommend it for families, with 5 being the youngest limit and older children probably getting even more out of it. It is quite interesting for adults too, as it reminded me of some of the science I had learned in school and since forgotten! I really liked the virtual i-nstein character which was projected above the screen and gave some of the more detailed scientific explanations.
Watch the trailer below!
There always tends to be quite a bit going on at the Science Museum. Currently there are some 3D events going on too. We did not get chance yet to try these out as we had to get back to visit some relatives after the show, but it does sound really interesting.
We have also enjoyed the Bubble show in the past, which is in the basement near to the Garden area and is suitable even for babies to enjoy! I have been taking the children to the Science museum since Mr Z was quite small as it makes a fun free day out with loads of different things to explore. It’s always definitely worth a visit.