I am a big science buff. I love watching both good and bad science. The speculative science that just wants to see something bad happen to the world and also the real science being made by real nerds. Science is fun. I watch a lot of shows on Discovery and National Geographic and I follow all the leading scientific/technological blogs.

Since I like science so much, the Ontario Science Centre (OSC) was a big disappointment. There were very few moments where I found myself looking on in awe at something and even less places when I ended up reading the placards and the explanations of phenomena. Not to mention all the distracting kids that were there. Well, I guess I was the one who was the odd one out because the whole place and all the exhibits are really for kids and not for someone my age.

The other thing that bothered me was that there was so little to see. The first exhibit itself was just an exercise in mechanics that looked more like art than science. Just a bunch of parts moving together or not to create funny and sometimes disturbing exhibits.

The only 2 things that I found vaguely interesting were the balls moving around in the maze and the hand made paper stall. My not finding too many interesting things could also have been to do with the fact that I had gone there in the winter. I believe that they have some really nice things on the outside in the summers. They have nature walks and musical fountains that would have interested me.

Getting out of there was also a huge adventure. We had to go back all the way that we came, linearly in reverse. At one point I thought that I was lost but then I remembered that I had to take a right from the giant elephant heart and head up in the elevator to get to the level where if I went down a flight of steps I would be at the lobby. Fortunately before I could act upon this memory, one of the guards found us and showed us a shortcut… and the loo.

All in all if I was about 10 or 11 years old, I would have had a really nice time there. As it happens, I am only 6 by my wife’s estimate.