Best Indoor Playground
Flandrau Science Center
UA Mall, at Cherry Avenue
STAFF PICK: The Flandrau Science Center, on the
corner of University Boulevard and Cherry Avenue in the heart
of the UA campus, is just the kind of place that can spur a child
to take up engineering, or rocket science or even space medicine.
But set practicality aside for a minute: The place is just plain
fun. The Flandrau staff offers a rotating program of shows, demonstrations
and lectures geared toward several age groups--for instance, the
recent Magic Sky, geared to the 5-year-old set; or the
popular Dinosaur Chronicles, which is just right for children
who've seen The Lost World and can't get enough ancient-reptile
buzz.
If you have a budding scientist in your household, you'll want
to make for the Flandrau Planetarium Science Center Gift Shop,
a treasury of books, star charts, interplanetary maps, model kits,
minerals and science-fair projects that makes us, and not for
the first time, want to shed a couple of decades and start our
education over again.
