Attractions at the Science Centre Singapore – June 2016

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Angeline

We went to check out the Science Centre Singapore (SCS) last week and I thought we’d share with you what (new) attractions it has to offer.

  1. Butterflies Up-Close

This beautiful piece of work is made of 1500 butterflies’ wings!

Developed in partnership with Sentosa’s Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom (BIK), Butterflies Up-Close showcases all four stages of a butterfly’s metamorphosis – from egg to adulthood. I must admit that I’ve never been to BIK, and the closest I’ve been to butterflies was at Changi Airport’s Butterfly Garden at Terminal 3, Departure Transit Lounge, Level 2 & 3.

Butterflies Up-Close is informative with interactive touch points, live displays and a vivid storyline that flows across five zones where visitors will gain unique insights into the lives of butterlifes and learn more about their ways of life.

Zone One: Introduction

Learn about nine different butterfly species from around the world, before entering the exhibition.

Zone Two: Orientation

Taking a photo with the Atlas Moth

We learnt the differences between moths and butterflies through painted fiberglass models of the Painted Jezebel butterfly and the Atlas moth.

Zone Three: Egg, Caterpillar, Pupa

We learnt that sometimes the eggs are in a cluster

but most of the time, they are single eggs.

We loved this exhibit! Did you know the first food of the caterpillar is its own shell?

It was definitely engaging, especially for the children.

Zone Four: Enclosure

In the butterfly enclosure, we got to get really up-close to the fragile beauties, including Singapore’s national favourite, the Common Rose. There are about 500 butterflies of at least 17 different species from Singapore and around the region in the enclosure.

The Common Rose

He posed happily with the butterflies during our visit but my girl was squeamish and refused to go near them

And he got even braver and let a butterfly onto his forehead:

We also got to see the pupa stage:

The green ones are those that haven’t emerged as butterflies

We also learnt that butterflies, after they emerge from their chrysalis, need to hang on something till their wings are ready for flight (usually for a few hours) – at this stage, they are considered baby butterflies! 😀

Zone Five: Research Pod

Highlights of the interactive exhibition include a “Research Pod” where visitors can look at the iridescence on butterfly wings, find out how a butterfly views the world and observe butterfly specimens under microscopes and learn about their anatomy.

At an additional cost of $5 per bookmark/ $28 per frame, you can also bring back these souvenirs:

Watching his bookmark being laminated after personalising it on the back – that’s a real butterfly wing on his bookmark!

We chose a butterfly each for our wooden display frames – aren’t these butterflies gorgeous? 😀

Hubby chose the Great Mormon and I chose the Red Mormon – this photo was taken before we placed them into individual wooden box frames

If you haven’t checked out the Butterflies Up-Close and your little ones are learning about caterpillars/ butterflies/ moths/ life cycles or you happen to be reading The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (every kid reads this at some point right? Click the link for some activities we did when reading the book – a visit to such an exhibition would have been perfect, but there wasn’t any in the past), you should check it out at Hall D, Science Centre, 10am-6pm. Duration of the visit to this exhibition should take 45-60min. Admission charges – S$10 excluding admission to Science Centre Singapore. Suitable for 3 years old and up.

2. FunFair Maths

Funfair Maths is a travelling exhibition that celebrates the wonders of Mathematics. With over 20 interactive and playful exhibits, FunFair Maths allows visitors to slip naturally into the world of patterns, shapes and numbers where Math can be appreciated in a carnival atmosphere.

We spent quite some time here because the exhibits were really fascinating, even for non-Math geeks. The Math geek would need half a day here, checking out all the exhibits and games. Be warned if your companion is a Math geek, like mine.

We started with A-Maze-ing Math and it proved to be more difficult than it looks!:

Can you escape the maze by making right turns only?

We’ll only show you some of the games because there are too many to describe!

Double gravity well

The highlight of the exhibition (at least for the kids) was riding on a square-wheeled tricycle. (For safety, closed-toe footwear is strictly required to ride this exhibit). An adult-sized tricycle is available as well.

The highlight of the exhibition

Fun with Tessellation

Functions machine

It is obvious who enjoyed the exhibition the most.

Due to time constraints, we couldn’t finish the exploration of the entire FunFair Maths but we’ll be back to do it again since we have the Science Centre membership – we signed up for it earlier this year and it came with a Science magazine subscription as well as Omnitheatre passes and discounts to special exhibitions and KidsStop/ Snow City. If you live in the West like us, you should consider getting a membership too!

Venue: The Annexe Foyer (until 26 June 2016); Travelling exhibition from 12 Mar 2016 (end date TBC)

Cost: FREE (Science Centre Singapore admission charges apply)

3. Human Body Experience (HBX)

If you haven’t been to the Human Body Experience since it opened its doors on 31 May 2014, this is your last chance to catch it before it ends in early July.

I brought the kids on my own in October 2014, and I had to literally push them into the ‘mouth’ and down the throat. Even though they were initially excited about the exhibition then, they felt afraid and intimidated when they saw the real thing. Much has changed in that 1.5 years and they were both thrilled to enter the exhibition when we were there this June. Little Boy even went twice!

The HBX is a 3D interactive journey of the human anatomy, offering visitors an endoscopic view of how the body functions. It shows the inner workings of the brain, lungs, digestive system and circulatory system. Visitors enter through the mouth of a giant face and pass through a twisting maze of tunnels through the throat and stomach, and the intestines tunnels have a putrid smell, just in case you’re wondering.

The exhibits are sculpted representations of body parts and the exhibition is replete with special effects including strobe lighting, mist spray, confined spaces, unsteady surfaces, tactile sculptures, optical illusions, holograms, audio, 3D video and touch pads to provide a unique sensory experience that closely resembles the inside of a human body.

Closing on 3 July, the tickets are now $15 for adults and $12 for children (3-12 years old),  SCS entrance fee applies.  

Venue: Hall B, Science Centre Singapore

Duration: 20-30minutes

4. KidsSTOP

Photo taken on another day when we were there in May

We went to KidsSTOP in the afternoon after HBX. While my girl was attending a Let’s Explore – the ‘Invisible Force’ workshop conducted by the Science Centre (check out the Events tab for more workshops in the SCS website in the later half of the year), hubby was with little boy at KidsSTOP.

Playing at the Built Environment Zone

Their usual favourite things to do there include:

Photo taken in May, at the Dino Pit as paleontologists

Role-playing at the supermarket and cafeteria:

The Human body Zone is another favourite:

To experience the thrill of free fall at Giant J – a 7-m slide where visitors experience a sensation of free-fall before sliding to safety. Little boy went for 5.5m!:

What’s new at KidsSTOP is the Oceans’ Buddies exhibit. It is the first virtual ocean with sea creatures in 3-D form to educate children on marine life and how they can do their part to protect the environment and preserve ecosystems.

The key highlight is a visually stunning virtual ocean floor projected onto a wall where children can see their personalised sea creatures come “alive” as their creations take on a 3-D form.

Colouring in their chosen sea creature

And here’re the personalised sea creatures in 3D on the screen:

This is not a colouring activity where the children bring home their work. Instead, the amazing thing is that at the end of it, the children will bring their work to the staff and together with Pilot Pen’s revolutionary FriXion series pens and the special ink recycling machine provided by Toshiba which emits heat and erases the ink on the paper, the paper can be recycled and re-used up to five times! 😀

The kids were amazed that the colours disappeared!

KidsSTOP opening hours: 9.30am – 1.30pm, 2-6pm

Admission rates:

  • Singaporeans and PRs
    • Child (18 months – 8 years): $5 (weekdays), $10 (weekends and public holidays)
    • Adult (aged 9 years and above): $2 (weekdays), $5 (weekends and public holidays)
  • Overseas visitors and Local Residents
    • Child (18 months – 8 years): $20 (weekdays), $23 (weekends and public holidays)
    • Adult (aged 9 years and above): $10 (weekdays), $13 (weekends and public holidays)

For more details, please visit KidsSTOP.

5. Snow City

Our last stop for the day was the revamped Snow City. First opened in the year 2000, Snow City was revamped in 2015. It is Singapore’s only permanent indoor snow centre and public area, with average operating temperatures of -5 degrees Celsius.

Getting ready to enter!

The revamped Snow City features a new snow machine, the first of its kind in Asia, which is customised to produce soft, powdery snow of similar quality to real snow.

Can you see the drama-mama in action?

The coldest we’ve ever experienced as a family was Taiwan’s winter in 2014 and that is definitely nothing compared to the cold at Snow City. The new space also offers visitors tips on how to reduce their carbon footprint and how to combat global warming.

The kids went to play at the snow playground, with a real-life igloo, snow slides and snow sculptures of Snow City’s new mascots:

There’s even a tree house adventure playground to complete the Inuit lifestyle experience.

With the new snow machine, we are technically supposed to be able to make snow balls, but we failed. Fun, nevertheless.

Learning more about the Arctic and the Inuit:

Giant Suki’s Nest:

The highlight of the place was definitely the Snow Slope. It was 60-m of exhilaration and just like the Skyline Luge, once is never enough.

Snow City is open daily from 10am – 6pm (last admission at 5pm), and from 10am – 7pm on school and public holidays (last admission at 6pm). If you’re looking to beat the heat and learn to appreciate the warmth we enjoy daily, a trip to Snow City is in place. We spent about half an hour at Snow City before we turned into Rudolph, but that’s just us.

Admission rates:

1 hour Snowplay

  • Singaporeans/PR
    • Child (3-12 years old): $12
    • Adult: $15
  • Standard
    • Child (3-12 years old): $18
    • Adult: $18

2 hours Snowplay

  • Singaporeans/PR
    • Child (3-12 years old): $18
    • Adult: $25
  • Standard
    • Child (3-12 years old): $28
    • Adult: $23

For more information, visit Snow City.

Snow City is also home to The Cliff, an educational and exciting sport-climbing wall facility constructed on the facade of Snow City. You can read about our experience climbing at The Cliff.

 

Disclosure: Our visit to the Science Centre Singapore (SCS) is part of our collaboration with the SCS to showcase its exhibitions and events. We paid for a SCS membership at the start of the year, and all other personal trips to the SCS and its partners prior to the event were fully paid by ourselves. No monetary compensation was received. This is the first of more posts to come as I am collaborating with the SCS as its ambassador. 

 

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Junior Explorers Review {Giveaway + Promo code)

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Angeline

So it’s been slightly more than six months since we subscribed to Junior Explorers. In our initial review of the subscription box, here’s what I said we liked about it and what can be improved:

What I really like about the subscription box:

The online mission is excellent in terms of the crafting of the content. Everything flows logically, information is provided systematically and the games are engaging and tap on the interests of the target age group. You can go back and play any of the games at the end of the mission without having to go through the entire process.

The kids are exposed to the biomes of the world and explore these one at a time. In each biome, they learn not only about the animals, the habitats that categorise the biome, they also learn more about the world – the continents, the oceans, geographical knowledge.

Subscription covers everything that you need so there’s actually no need to look for extra information if you don’t want to. Extras to keep the kid engaged include tattoos, stickers, the collectible wristband and badge are also helpful to keep the hype up so interest is sustained through the month (till the next package arrives).

What I think can be improved:

It’d be good if the online missions could take a shorter time to load.

Some of the games had a time limit which I find rather short for younger kids in the target age group. I had to help my girl with the controls as she isn’t so tech-savvy to operate the laptop that fast.

The volume of the characters speaking during the online mission swings to extremes. Some characters are really loud, while some are soft. I had to constantly adjust the volume.

So how have we liked the subscription box so far?

I still stand by what I said I like about the subscription box. In fact, I think I’m quite impressed with the fact that they constantly try to make changes to their content and the kit.

I’ll just give a brief overview of what we’ve received thus far to give you an idea of what to expect if you subscribe.

In the first two months, you’d receive a welcome kit and your first mission. Technically you’d receive them separately but for purposes of the initial review, I received both in the same month.

My girl with the welcome kit. For details about what’s included in the welcome kit, please click to read my initial post about Junior Explorers.

Our first mission kit. Again, exact details and how we dealt with the entire kit can be found in our initial post.

Subsequently, we received a mission kit each month, though the arrival period of the kit sometimes varied. But that’s not a big issue for us. With my girl in Primary school, we don’t always get to work on the kit immediately when it arrives anyway.

Here are what we have received so far:

Package #3: Serengeti

Package #4: The Great Barrier Reef

Package #5: The Amazon

Package #6: Everglades

I must make a mention that the format changed slightly with the Everglades package. Unlike the previous kits that we’d received, when we opened up the padded envelope, we found an A4 sized booklet, with the information sheet, mission details, postcards, animal cards and activity sheet inside instead of the loose sheets that they used to come in. The tattoos, collectible badges and wristbands and the two collectible small animals were found in the padded envelope.

Detailed look of the new A4 sized booklet

I was initially happy with the new layout because it looked so neat but I quickly realised that the drawback was that I couldn’t fit the padded envelope with the small loose items into the ‘luggage bag’ (i.e. the cardboard box provided in the welcome kit). Previously there was a separate white envelope (with the mission title printed on it) containing all the items for the mission within the padded envelope and that fit perfectly in the box.

Comparison of the size of the white envelope which used to be included vs. the padded envelope

With the new format, I had to store the loose items from that mission kit separately in a ziploc bag. That certainly didn’t feel as neat anymore, though I really liked the look of the new almost-all-in-one booklet.

The next month, we received something different again!

This time the package came in a cardboard box for the first time instead of the usual padded envelope

Package #7: Gulf Coast

This time, the A4 booklet was still there with the animal cards etc. but this time round, there were new never-seen-before items included! What was new include – a huge shark chart, finger tattoos instead of the usual tattoos, shark stencils, a ‘shark tooth’ necklace and some stickers which were much smaller than the usual ones. Just when we thought it was getting predictable, we were really ecstatic to see that some changes to the mission kit really spiced things up and upped the interest in the subscription box again!

Over the moon with her new shark tooth necklace

Some of the finger tattoos!

Not only were the physical items different, the online mission was also different for this mission kit as the kids got to track sharks they learnt about in real time. It was only after the kids had stuck most of the small shark stickers on the box that I realised that the stickers were meant to be markers for where the sharks could be found. Oh well. A month later when I checked back on the website, the Junior Explorer team had included better instructions instead of just saying that we were being redirected to another site to track the sharks. The kids were kinda disappointed though that there weren’t online games that month. Haha.

Our latest package came in the usual padded envelope this time with some changes again. Did I say how absolutely impressed I am with the things they are doing to jazz things up?

Package #8: Dinosaurs Dig

In place of the A4 booklet was a set of coloured printed papers stapled together with details about the mission as well as the information sheet and some fun activities. This time there were only three tattoos, individually cut up instead of a sheet of tattoos which we usually receive. The super awesome thing about this mission kit is that it comes with a dinosaur activity book and a sticker activity book! The dinosaurs were much larger than the usual small figurines in the previous mission kits and there were three build-a-dinosaur pieces included too.

One of the three dinosaurs we built. Pretty much? Doesn’t come with instructions though so we had to figure it out ourselves.

Surprisingly there were no animal cards, postcards, wristband and badge. No biggie though. The activity books kinda already made up for that. We still can’t access the online mission though which is quite a bummer since last month they didn’t get any online games either.

Overall, I’d still recommend this subscription box. Regarding the things I thought could be improved in my previous post, I still have some issues taking a long time to load missions sometimes but this is quite sporadic. I’m not a tech geek so I’ve no idea why sometimes it loads very quickly and why sometimes it seems to take forever. There’s still volume discrepancy within the online mission but it’s certainly not as bad as when I first reviewed it. I like that they have tried in these few months to change things around a bit as it did get a bit repetitive after awhile. A surprise is good every once in a while! I would really like the pretty white envelope to be back though so I can organise the items neatly again!

If you’re interested in this subscription box, you can get 10% off your subscription when you key in the promotional code SM10 when checking out your cart.

Also, I’ve got a giveaway specially for my readers! Simply tell me what you like best of this subscription box in the blog comments and remember to click the options in the Rafflecopter widget below to qualify! 😀

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a Junior Explorers subscription for purposes of review. 

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Lovely and constructive comments are welcomed. Do hop over to my Facebook page where I connect with my readers and I would love to have you following me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram too 🙂

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