Gwacheon Science Museum

There are at least three science museums in Seoul, and I have not been to a single one. This is a sad statement considering I get really excited about science topics. (I even read science texts for fun; currently Physics DeMystified. Yes, I am a nerd.) Today, I took my girls to Gwacheon Science Museum and did I get excited! We have been in a part of the building previously to visit a special exhibition about Tut's tomb, and I didn't realize at that time what exactly we were next to. The building is shaped like an aircraft - if seen in person it is easier to recognize. It is a massive museum with a planetarium, an insectarium (currently closed for work), seven indoor halls and several outdoor sections also. We were only able to cover three indoor halls and a small part of the outside today. Even the playground has science themed equipment!

Of course our first stop was in the children's section. They have a ton of hands-on things for kids to do. Unfortunately, there is very little English signage and no English explanations at all in the kids section. But being a science nerd I was able to explain to my kids what was going on. I got really excited in the anatomy section (that is my area of expertise) and overwhelmed them I think. There was an area with simple machines (levers), a caterpillar life cycle movie, an underwhelming space area, and a music/sound area.

Anatomy section; much better than the picture shows.

Next we walked over to the basic sciences hall. It has major highlights from chemistry, biology, physics, physical science - the basics. This hall had a little more English than the children's section, but not much. My nerdiness paid of again and I was able to help the girls out, though this is really for upper elementary/middle school aged kids.

Testing the conductivity of objects.

Learning about the water cycle.

Plasma lights - always the most amazing part.

After our cliche cheeseburger lunch in the food court, we went to the natural science hall where the main attraction for little ones is kept: dinosaurs.

Animatronics!

Ecology system.

These three halls took about three hours to go through, so we skipped the rest of the indoor things and went outside. They have some rockets and trains on display, but once again the dinosaurs ruled the day.

There was what appeared to be a rather good geology section but it was all in Korean, so I don't know. The insectarium was under going some construction, and the planetarium was crazy busy with school kids so we didn't see either of those either. Also, I'm certain that the planetarium show is all in Korean, which would only lead to the girls asking every two seconds "What are they saying?" and since astronomy is the part of science of which I am absolutely ignorant, it wouldn't go well. So the next and final stop was the playground, of which, for some reason, I took no pictures. There were science themed objects such as giant xylophones, hand operated backhoes, and this really cool thing I can't describe! 

It was a lot of fun and a lot of learning and we will definitely be going back!