The MOSH - Jacksonville
The Museum for Science and History was a ton of fun for school aged kiddos. I was completely on board as soon as we walked into the first exhibit, there was a life size Right Whale on the wall. I mean come on, how cool is that?
The museum did a great job of keeping exhibits interactive and hands free, my children loved waving their hand over the buttons and watching the lights come one and listening to narrating voices. As we moved on to the “energy” exhibit the science shifted toward older elementary aged students, there was lots of reading and my fresh 5 year old, who reads about 10 words, pretended like she was reading but ultimately there wasn’t much for her to do. There was one room geared towards preschool and maybe even toddlers, but for some reason both of my younger kids passed on this room.
I’ve noticed in Florida there is definitely a push to #keepfloridawild, and one of the rooms contained Florida native animals. The children enjoyed searching for the opossum hiding in its enclosure and the close up look of the owls. Interestingly enough there was a sign that my fresh 5 year old couldn’t read that said something about not “hooting” at the owls. Of course she saw the owl, and began hooting, before I could tell her to stop, the owl started hooting back!!! It was so cool and we started laughing because I was like, “ OMG, you must be Dr. Dolittle.”
As we looked up the winding stairs we could tell that something magical was happening upstairs. As we rode the elevator, to the irritation of the kids, even though I reminded them I was not about to drag the stroller up a winding staircase, their excitement mounted. “WOW”, was the first thing they exclaimed as we stepped off the elevator. The Deep Sea exhibit included a giant submarine complete with slide and room for a squadron of kids. The ceiling of the 2nd floor reminded me a warehouse because it was so incredibly high, but the part that made us feel like we were underwater was the darkness. I can’t actually remember if there were oceans sounds playing in the background, but there was some ocean scenes playing on the wall and even an Atlantis looking backdrop. We happened to be there during two field trips, but let me tell you, the vastness of the 2nd floor didn’t even make us feel cramped.
But back to the submarine, it was so legit. At the helm, is that the correct term?, there were 2 seats and screens that made the children think they were navigating the submarine. My daughter was rolling back and forth in her captain’s chair as if she was really taking a deep plunge into the ocean. This thing was loaded with a periscope, a ladder that led to an observation bubble, a model kitchen and sleeping quarters. This is where we spent the most time, I think we were in the Deep Sea Area for 45 minutes.
Perhaps the MOSH changes up the 2nd level occasionally, but my children would definitely be up for going back to the Deep Sea exhibit, just for the submarine. Moving on, the building had a 3rd floor that I believe held lab rooms for field trips, we ran up the steps to see what was up there, while someone stayed back with the stroller, and we just saw some closed doors and small seashell exhibit.
The only downer was the outdoors area, I thought there was an exhibit of some sort, but there was one bench and small pond and calm waterfall fountain. So that was a let down, because I saved it for the end of our field trip and the kid were like “wait is that all there is?” But other than that, I would give MOSH a thumbs up for elementary aged kids.