The Franklin Institute

Sunday 15th April To recover for the disappointment of being outbid on the first house that we had out an offer in on, we decided to head into Philadelphia to visit the dinosaur exhibition which had been tempting us since arrival but which was ending today.  The exhibition was held at The Franklin Institute (http://www2.fi.edu/), the city's science museum named after local polymath and founding father Benjamin Franklin. As expected the exhibition was pretty spectacular with many skeletons and fossils from the Jurassic, Triassic and Cretaceous periods.  We all learnt something when the curator showed us the dinosaur skull and compared it to a modern bird and reptile demonstrating how this is evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs but that modern day reptiles had already evolved pre-dinosaurs.  The children enjoyed getting hands on in the excavation pit. You can never get enough science so we split up and headed off to see some of the permanent exhibitions.  G and I visited the Heart and climbed through an enormous heart, learnt about different coloured blood of different species (and the metals responsible) and saw models of hearts from the tiniest bird to the largest blue whale.  C & M ventured to Machines and had fun with levers, pulled and cogs. With our new annual membership we look forward to more outings to come!