Science Quiz

Ever look up to watch a hippopotamus swim?  Or stand between diving penguins and puffins?  On a delightful Saturday morning, the St. Louis Zoo proved again why a recent survey called it America’s favorite zoo. The experience invigorates the senses. 

Invigorated, I ran from the zoo to my car. But I kept running, with another destination in plain sight.

The St. Louis Science Center will awaken the scientist in every child.  You, too.  That’s a guarantee, or I’ll pay your admission, which, I’ll admit, is free. 

Spend a half day, but you’ll never get to all of the 700 hands-on exhibits. That’s right.  Hands-on.  Fool yourself with optical illusions.  Dial up a weather report from 3 billion years ago.  Create a rainbow.  The fun–and learning–never stops.

Breathless, I reached my car, and headed into the heart of the city, looking for the big yellow school bus perched precariously on the edge of the St. Louis City Museum.  This may be the most fun building exterior in the world.  On the inside, you can see more amazing exteriors, snatched from the path of a wrecking ball.  Oh and you can make your own shoelaces.

Back in my car, the hood ornament points to the number one national attraction for child appeal, according to a Zagat survey a few years ago.  Anaheim?  Orlando?  Nope, Kirkwood.  It’s the Magic House, with more hands-on science than an antivaxer can shake a tinfoil hat at.

Exhausted, I found rest on a bench in the waiting room of the Kirkwood railway station.

So where’s the science quiz?  

If Jr boards Amtrak’s westbound Missouri River Runner from Kirkwood at 8:10 am, and travels the Route of the Eagles at variable speeds, making stops in beautiful Washington, Hermann, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Warrensburg, Lee’s Summit and Independence, what time will he arrive in that western delight, Science City at Union Station?

Extra credit: Head south on I-49, the Bushwhacker Boulevard, into deep red state Missouri to find a ray of hope, and my hero. On the homestead where he was born sits the George Washington Carver National Monument, a scientific wonderland waiting for inquiring minds. In the middle of a restored prairie, it’s packed with enough common sense to save the world, equal parts Carver science, Carver care and Carver lifestyle. He was so much more than the peanut, although Jimmy Carter agrees that rotating peanut crops with the voracious cotton plant saved the Georgia soil.

To paraphrase Carver’s friend Harry Truman, The only thing new in the world is the history (and the science) you don’t know.

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