{"id":7919,"date":"2019-07-17T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T14:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=7919"},"modified":"2019-12-22T00:46:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T05:46:10","slug":"worcesters-ecotarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/17\/worcesters-ecotarium\/","title":{"rendered":"Worcester’s EcoTarium"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Glass<\/a>

Glass balcony<\/p><\/div>\n

\"City<\/a>

City Science area<\/p><\/div>\n

In an effort to get to better know the city where I am doing time this summer – and to, perhaps, make this blog just a little less depressing – I made a brief visit to Worcester’s EcoTarium<\/a> yesterday. TripAdvisor ranks it as the #2 attraction in Worcester (the #1 attraction, the Worcester Art Museum, was closed for the day). It is described by one TripAdvisor reviewer as “a good place to take young children” so my expectations were low. But I was moderately impressed. It is indeed a good place to take young children, but there were plenty of exhibits that I found interesting as well.<\/p>\n

I would characterize the EcoTarium as a science museum with an ecological slant, with some zoo animals added as a sweetener. The zoo exhibits were not very interesting. They had a couple of rescued bald eagles, which might be of interest to people who have never seen a bald eagle up close and personal. There were also some interesting turtle species in their wetlands exhibit. But I was most attracted to the science exhibits which, while small (a shadow of Boston’s Museum of Science), were well done and engaging. Too often, in a small museum, exhibits tend to be broken or out of date. That wasn’t the case here.<\/p>\n

\"Outdoor<\/a>

Outdoor playground<\/p><\/div>\n

There were small exhibits of the dynamic flow of both fog and wind and a nice explanation of why the top of Mount Washington is so windy. The balcony on the top floor had a glass floor which wasn’t actually an exhibit, but did test my trust of the strength of glass.<\/p>\n

The grounds are not extensive but are well-kept and had some hiking trails (which I didn’t try). There is also a small train that runs around the perimeter, which I also didn’t try.<\/p>\n

Summary: not great, but not bad. I may bring my granddaughter here, to see how a teen reacts.<\/p>\n

\"Fog<\/a>

Fog flow exhibit<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Train\"<\/a>

Train<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Another<\/a>

Another playground area<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an effort to get to better know the city where I am doing time this summer – and to, perhaps, make this blog just a little less depressing – I made a brief visit to Worcester’s EcoTarium yesterday. TripAdvisor ranks it as the #2 attraction in Worcester (the #1 attraction, the Worcester Art Museum, … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-places-ma","category-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-23J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7919"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8198,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7919\/revisions\/8198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}