w252

Lassen Volcanic

National Park

Descriptive story coming

w253

Oregon Dunes

National Recreaton Area

Story coming.

w254

Zion National Park

Story coming.

w255

Castle Air Museum

Descriptive story text coming!

w256

Fishing Neah Bay

Descriptive story text coming soon!

w257

Oregon Museum

of Science and Industry

WHAT’S HERE: A treasure chest of science discoveries for kids and adults

DON’T MISS THIS: Any of the hands-on lab experiments

If you are anywhere near Portland, and especially if you are traveling with kids, then OMSI (pronounced OM-zee or OM-see) is a place you don’t want to miss. The big museum sits beside the Willamette River below Interstate 5’s Marquam Bridge. There are hundreds of things for kids to do here, although a few, such as the laser light show, the planetarium, and the submarine, require extra fees.

Just about everything here is hands-on. The main exhibit hall offers opportunities to launch water rockets that nearly hit the high ceilings. You control the amount of pressure and water loaded into your rocket and determine when to launch it. What makes the soda bottle rocket blast higher—more water and less air, or more air and less water? There’s a Mercury space capsule that lets kids climb in and lie back, ready for launch. This one doesn’t go anywhere like the soda bottle rockets do, but kids can get a sense of how an astronaut felt lying there before blasting off.

Robots have come of age, at least in factories. You can sit at the controls of a giant robot arm and compete against a friend in a contest that measures your finesse in moving small objects. Tired of robots? Numerous stations allow visitors to do everything from design, build, and fly paper airplanes and helicopters to spend time in the inventor’s ball room, which is filled with plastic balls that kids can shoot through various vacuum tubes and air guns.

In some of the labs, staff and volunteers assist kids—and adults—in learning about everything from static electricity in the physics lab with a real hair-raising experiment, to the power of vibration. With goggles on, youngsters have opportunities to try various experiments in the chemistry lab using real chemicals, while the laser and holography lab allows them to observe the refraction properties of water and learn how holograms are created.

When you tire all of the hands-on stuff, try a trip aboard the Motion Simulator that will surround you with sound and film projections as it takes you and about a dozen others on a trip down a volcano or on a high speed run around a racetrack. The OMNIMAX Dome Theater has a five-story screen with an IMAX projection system and a 15,000-watt surround-sound system. There are usually several different movies playing, which can make it difficult to choose.

If it happens to be a warm, sunny day, staff may even be outside playing with some of the more fascinating “toys” such as the model of an old castle-bashing catapult that shoots tennis balls great distances. They’re likely to encourage you to help.

HOURS: September through mid-June: Tuesday through Sunday, 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM; mid-June through August, daily 9:30 AM to 7 PM. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas.

COST: Adults, $11; seniors (63 and older) and ages 3–13, $9; OMNIMAX Dome Theater, adults, $8.50; seniors (63-plus) and ages 3 to 13, $6.50; parking, $2.

w258

Tillamook

Cheese Factory

Descriptive story text coming soon!

w259

Tillamook

Air Museum

Descriptive story text coming soon!

w260

Oregon Coast

Aquarium

Descriptive story text coming soon!