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Justin whispers to a friend
My husband and I are reluctant cub scout leaders. Ken travels for business ALOT, and I try to juggle my responsibilities as the informal assistant leader for Justin’s den in addition to my role as business owner, mother of preschoolers…you get the picture. We serve our den as best we can, but we are blessed with alot of parent support.
As we entered into a busy year of Webelos this year, we called upon the parents to each help the den complete on badge activity. The results have been spectacular and the source of some great family adventures. So far the boys have toured a working construction site, City Hall, and the Gemological Institute of America. In order to earn our Science badge, Den 7 headed to the Fleet Science Museum last weekend. They present a wonderful comprehensive science badge workshop with fun hands on activities. It was lead by a spirited young graduate student. The boys did an amazing array of very simple experiments to learn more about the scientific laws discussed in the Boy Scout book. The boys blew ping pong balls with straws and launched film cannister rockets. The day reminded me of just how fun science can be, and how sad it is that this kind of interactive science seldom seems to make it into the public school classroom.
Other information about the Fleet Science Museum:
The Cafeteria food is overpriced like most tourist destinations, but at least it is high quality and yummy. They have a wide variety of kid friendly choices including hot dogs and cereal. Justin ordered a Greek salad and a hot dog. That’s my boy 
. I had the Tortellini salad. With drinks lunch was about $17.
If you pack your own lunch or snack, you can’t eat it in the museum, but there is a beautiful plaza with a fountain right outside.
The museum is small, with some very fun hands on exhibits. Plan to spend about 2-3 hours exploring. Is it worth full admission? That’s a hard one. You might want to try to visit on a free Tuesday or combine your visit with an IMAX show.
Tags: Balboa Park, cub scout, Family Travel, Ruben Fleet Science Museum, San Diego Day Trip, San Diego Science Museum, Scouting, Webelo, Webelo Science Badge
Jo said:
Science programing was my specialty within my job as a Girl Scout Staff member. I too found science fun with all the hands on projects that I designed for our Girl Scout 95th birthday party with the theme Girl Scouts using Science to Make the World a Better Place. We had a weekend in Bozeman MT in conjunction with the Museum of the Rockies which has a Planetarium. We had meterologists, local female technology business owners, MT fish, wildlife and parks…basically any industry that was science based set up displays during the first afternoon/evening while everyone was arriving setting up camp and what not. The second day was filled with visiting the museum(on schedule) and 5-7 other hands on activities that were age appropriate for 4 different age groups. The oldest girls spent time with LegoRobotics! This is a fun interactive and competative group. for more info check out this link. There was fingerprinting and boat building with foil to see whose boat would hold the most marbles and magnetic hunts and even a ROVER obstacle course using human blind folded rovers that were “programed” from the sidelines(just like rovers on Mars are programed from earth.
Why is it that we as scout leaders and staff can find so much fun and hands on activities in science and our school teachers don’t include much of this stuff in their classrooms? The most fun my kids have had is building bridges from popcycle sticks or toothpicks. Oh, and I have a whole bag of film canister rockets in my basement scout cupboard! They are so fun!!
Sounds like the science museum was fun too!