Catawba Science Center

Being the science nerd that I am, I couldn't wait until Ella was old enough to take to the Catawba Science Center. So today, we all headed to Hickory for a day of learning and exploring! They have fresh water & salt water aquariums, a planetarium, and lots of exhibits to see. Our neighbors have a coy pond and Ella loves to go next door and look at the "F-I-S-HHH" so we were excited to take her to see lots of fish. The aquariums were set up so you could touch the fish and turtles. We got to touch a stingray, shark, crab, and turtle. The turtles were by far Ella's favorite! They were so friendly and would come right up to where we were standing. Ella stuck her hands right in and immediately tried to grab her a turtle. Once she found out that she could move them around by pushing their shells, she would dunk them when they would surface. At first I was worried they might bite her, but they kept coming back for more. Ella dunked those poor turtles over and over again. She was soaking wet and so was the floor around us. While we were there, we got to see them feed the sharks. It was so funny because while we were standing there a stingray jumped up out of the water and splashed at Cory. It scared him and he yelled :) Scared of a little stingray?!

Let me at those little fishies!

Please don't mistake my finger for a worm!

Come here little turtles...who wants to be dunked next?

We found NEMO!

This little guy was in a tank all by himself. I thought he was kinda cute.

On Exhibit...

They currently have "Little Builders" & "Body Carnival" on exhibit. There was all kinds of blocks and minature construction equipment for the kids to play with. Ella enjoyed pretending to paint with Mommy & stacking blocks with Daddy. My favorite exhibit was the big artery you could crawl through. It started out as a normal healthy artery, but as you crawled further through it you could see the formation of plaques which eventually ended with a fully blocked artery. What an excellent way to teach kids to lay off the Happy Meals :) Here are some fun facts that we learned during our visit at the "Body Carnival:"

~You have about 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body

~Messages to and from the brain travel at a speed of approximately 200 miles/hr

~The average person burns 1.0-1.6 calories doing NOTHING (even while sleeping)

~The human brain weighs around 3 pounds with 2 pounds being water

~Over half of the bones in your body are in your hands and feet

Crawling through the artery

This is what an artery that is completely blocked looks like. Makes you want to eat

another Big Mac & large fry, huh?

Spinning on the human centrifuge. Mommy had to get off because she was getting motion sickness when Daddy started going fast.

Ella wanted to go faster! She didn't seem to mind it a bit unlike her Mommy!