Check out a cool new exhibit or tour
If you can’t beat the heat, look for a diversion. Two popular attractions in the area have a cool new exhibit or tour this year that should thrill the kids and teach them a little something too.
National Building Museum, Washington, D.C.
The new summer installation “Icebergs” is the epitome of cool. Walk into the atrium of the National Building Museum and you will feel as if you’re underwater in the midst of a glacial ice field. A “water line” suspended 20 feet high will bisect the vertical space, allowing panoramic views from high above the ocean surface and down below among the towering bergs. The tallest iceberg reaches 56 feet, to the third-story balcony of the museum. Made from re-usable construction materials, the exhibit invites visitors to cross an undersea bridge, explore caves on the ocean floor and sample shaved-ice.
“It’s definitely something that the kids have not ever seen before,” says Emma Flair, marketing and communications manager for the National Building Museum. “It’s going to be cool to look at and there are activities for all ages.”
The exhibit will be on display through Sept. 5.
Cost: $5-$16, which includes museum admission
202-272-2448, nbm.org
National Aquarium, Baltimore
You might have been to the aquarium, but have you taken the “Icky, Creepy, Slimy, Cool Tour?” New this year, the two-hour tour gives a sneak peek behind the scenes at some of the aquarium’s slimiest, grossest and coolest creatures. Learn about the habits, habitats, traits and quirks of bats, bugs, octopuses, crocodiles, eels, jellyfish and more. The tour exposes kids to sharks that walk the ocean bottom to fish that can creep on land. You might even get to help feed some of the toothier residents and touch some of the slimiest. Children must be at least 8 years old to participate.
Cost: $65, which includes admission; registration required
410-576-3800, aqua.org
By Kristy MacKaben