If you’re traveling with kids or if you’re a grown up who likes to push, pull, touch, and spin things set some time aside to visit the Experiment Science Centre (Centrum Nauki Experyment) when you’re visiting Gdynia, Sopot, or Gdańsk in Poland.
Sadly, the Center is closed right now, but let me show you what you can see inside once they reopen.
We visited the Centre in June 2019 when we were vacationing in Gdańsk, and Gdynia is just a short train ride away.
The center covers one very large room and has 5 major exhibition areas:
The information about each exhibit is both in Polish and English, so even if you don’t know Polish, you can still have fun and learn something.
Hydroworld
I don’t know what it is about water, but even my nearly adult son liked playing with the various water exhibits, because at the Experiment Science Centre you can make waves as shown in the featured photo above…
you can also shoot a ball upward with a stream of water created by turning a large wheel …
you can create a whirlpool and move several small balls to the surface of the water that way …
you can learn about viscosity = make big water bubbles in various liquids and see how fast they move …
you can learn about how waves can create energy … (where a magnet fixed to a float moving up and down on the waves produces an alternating magnetic field inside a coil)
and you can learn about how dams work and create energy (and play with blocks) …
Operation Human and Towards Health
The exhibits included in the “Operation Human” and “Towards Health” sections have information about all five senses, including how to take care of them well.
I’m not going to include a model of a smoker’s lungs, but here’s an example of an exhibit teaching the visitors about protecting your hearing… (be quieter than too loud = avoid excessive noise)
In this section you can also learn about how acoustic mirrors amplify whisper or other soft sounds …
or how your muscles move …
I think this is also the area that helps memorize 14 digits of pi by explaining that memory works by association
Tree of Life
The Tree of Life section teaches about botany and animal anatomy, but also palaeontology and geology, so here you can learn how mountains are formed …
Invisible Forces
The invisible forces sections is basically about physics, including aerodynamics where you can shoot bottles with a blast of air …
learn about electricity and circuits ….
figure out how windlasses help move something really heavy …
learn how levers also help lifting something heavy (well, heavy-ish in this case) …
learn how gyroscopic precession works …
and try to create a standing wave by manipulating frequency …
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I hope this little photo gallery from the Experiment Science Centre convinced you to visit this place if you happen to be in the area.
Look at the Centre’s “How to Get There” page to figure out the best way for you to get there.
