The NASA Youth Space Challenge is happening this Saturday at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto.
It’s all part of a worldwide hack-a-thon, where the top thinkers and creators in Toronto and around the world try to solve challenges given to them by NASA.
There will be lots for you to create, too! You can design a space image and print it out to make your own buttons, create your own alien language and secret messages with a decoder, or storyboard your own Mars mission.
On top of all that, you will have the opportunity to chat with space experts!
If you could ask a space expert anything, what would you ask them?
Yesterday, I saw a preview of the new permanent exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre. The exhibit, called AstraZenecaHuman Edge, has more than 55 exhibits about the human body, health, fitness and nutrition. Here are some highlights from my visit!
The entrance to the exhibit got me excited to see what was inside!
This is a real interactive climbing wall! The exhibit talks about mountain climbers and what they face when they push their bodies to the limit. On the lower climbing wall, you can put yourself in the shoes of a climber and try for yourself! More experienced climbers can try the upper wall.
The heart is the hardest working muscle in our bodies. It pumps blood to our toes and back in just 16 seconds. Check out this real elephant heart. It was SO big. The elephant is one of the world’s largest land mammals — just imagine how hard an elephant’s heart must work to pump blood!
Interesting fact: our bodies produce a lot of snot, or mucus. In fact, this jar contains the amount of mucus a healthy body produces in ONE DAY. Of course, the mucus mostly stays inside our bodies, or we would need a lot of tissues!
Single Breath is an exhibit that resembles a diving bell on the outside. (A diving bell transports a diver deep into the ocean). This exhibit was designed with a world-champion freediver in mind. Mandy-Rae Cruickshank Krack, who narrates this exhibit, is a freediver who broke a world record for diving 88 metres in 2 minutes and 48 seconds. And she did it all in a single breath! Here, we see what the surface of the ocean looks like from the view of a diver. Neat!
Here I am experiencing the exhibit. I found it pretty exciting and spectacular to listen to Mandy-Rae narrate the dive and experience what she saw and felt during the whole 2 minutes and 48 seconds. I felt like I was there!
The AstraZeneca Human Edge exhibit opens Saturday, December 7. If you live in the Toronto area or plan on visiting, you should definitely check it out! You can get more details about the Ontario Science Centre by clicking HERE.
Let me know what you think of this exhibit by leaving a comment below!
Have you heard of Leonardo da Vinci? You may know him as the painter of the famous Mona Lisa. But did you know he’s also one of history’s greatest inventors? chickaDEE had the opportunity to go to the opening of a new exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre and check out Leonardo da Vinci’s Workshop – The Exhibition.
Leonardo was always dreaming, painting and inventing. He left behind thousands of pages of drawings of mechanical devices, machines, instruments and more. A team of researchers in Italy decided to take Leonardo’s designs and make real-life models out of them. That’s what this exhibit is all about!
The exhibit features models of Leonardo’s inventions and tons of interactive touch screens so you can see how they actually move and work. Check out some of the cool things I saw below.
Here is a mechanical lion. Leonardo built it for a French king. The lion can actually walk a few steps and then release lilies from his chest!
This is a Great Kite Flying Machine. He invented it after watching how birds fly. A person was supposed to sit in the contraption and move the wings with his hands and feet. (Unfortunately, it never worked, but he did draw up these plans hundreds of years before airplanes were invented!)
Here is a recreation of Leonardo’s workshop. Imagine that this is where he painted the super-duper famous Mona Lisa!
The exhibition opens today and goes on until March 28, 2012. If you live near Toronto, you should definitely check it out. What do you think of this exhibition?
