Little Women

• Jul. 27, 2007 - We went to the Creation Museum in KY 2 weeks ago

It was REALLY, really nice, though rather crowded.   (My parents have a friend who helped make it, and they said there were 75,000 people there in the first 6 weeks or so!   We figured it averaged about 1200 per day, though they said there were 4000 the first day, so perhaps the "average" doesn't count for much.  They really weren't set up for such huge crowds, so places like the lunch lines were very long.)  All of the crowds were really nice, though--no grumbling or complaining, at all, no negative words the whole day!  The exhibits themselves were very nice.   It was young earth, of course, but it wasn't really "in your face."   It doesn't really argue the facts, but more presumes them, and explains how they fit together.   (I'm sure you could get into very in-depth conversations with the people at the end of the museum, who are there for that purpose.)    For those who have read a lot of books, there wasn't much new information.  However, it was really nice to see it all in one place, to see what it could have been like, etc.   Both my older 2 girls would have spent much longer, and read every panel.       They spent quite a bit of time explaining how it is that we can see the same facts, but draw different interpretations from them.  I thought this was really good to just show how it is that YE'ers fit the pieces together.  Next there was a section on Biblical authority, with dioramas of Isaiah, Moses, and David; then one of Peter and John looking into the empty tomb; then one of Paul writing in prison.   This section also had a bit with a video that we didn't get to see much of about the Scopes Trial.  There was a bit about how turning away from God causes various social ills, which was not very graphic or scary. Then they went into the Biblical history (from a YE perspective), with a cool dramatized reading of Genesis 1.  (One of the  bottlenecks, but my kids loved this so much we saw it twice.)   After this, there is a diorama of the Garden of Eden, including a cool way they pictured Adam and Eve talking to God, with lights and shadows.   They used the typical Answers in Genesis 7C's presentation, so here was creation.   You come out of this into a room with pictures and a video presentation of various aspects of creation, such as laws of physics relating to light, animal eyes, birds and flight, etc.  My kids LOVED this, and would have stayed here for an hour! The serpent was realistic and scary.   Then they went into how the fall affected humanity, and this part WAS scary and somewhat gruesome.  There were pictures of things like the holocaust, and I hurried J (4yo) and C (7yo) through this part.   The older 2 (11yo and 13yo) were fine with it, though, and I think it was good for them to really see and understand this.   (Corruption) From there we went into a large Noah's ark diorama.  They had a cross-section of the ark, which I thought was really cool--it may have been 3-4 feet thick, and had huge beams and such!   There were little dioramas of various parts along the way, as well, and a computerized model of "the fountains of the deep" breaking open.  (Though honestly this wasn't quite the way I picture it, and I think they could have done better with the computer model.   Still, it was good, though, and not too scary for the littles.)   (Catastrophe) There was some discussion, not a lot, about the tower of Babel, and more about the dispersion of the races from one family.   This is, of course, a big question for many secular people (less so since some recent discoveries show all coming from one woman "not Eve, of course" and one man "not Adam, of course, nor Noah, either").  If you've read One Blood, you will be familiar with the basic genetic ideas here.  (Confusion) From here, you go through another theater, which does a really wonderful job of presenting the gospel.   (Called The Last Adam, it covers Christ and the Cross, which I think are the next 2 C's.)  It is not "in your face," but it says clearly "this is what we believe."   It's about 15 or 20 minutes, and is slightly graphic.  C watched it all, but K was with J, and covered her eyes a couple times.   I think it was OK, though.  I thought this part was really well done.    At the end, they just say that if you have questions, there are people in the foyer outside that you can talk to. Then there is the "dragon's den," which has a bunch of dinosaurs, mostly non-animated.   (Some of the dino's as you go along are animated, which is cool.  The figures and animations are very well done, top-of-the-line technology, real looking skin, etc.)   There is a video about dinosaurs and dragons which I did not see.  I bought the video and the kids and my mom saw and liked it, but I was at the store. The children's room was not open.  I'm not sure if it's finished or not, but they needed it for an overflow theater for The Last Adam.  They actually had the gospel video in three rooms, and had moved the dragons video into the lecture hall.   (One of the areas in which they were unprepared for the crowd, but they knew they had to let people see this piece of the whole picture.)    Without the children's room, though, there was not a lot for J to do, very little hands-on, at all. The bookstore was nice, well-stocked with books, though a bit low on things like t-shirts.  (I'm guessing that's mostly because such specifically marked items have to be pre-ordered, while the books might be more generally available for restocking.)  They had nice sections of kids' books, curriculum options (including the God's Design for Science series, their 7C's curriculum, and the Pilgrim's Progress unit study which I think they publish, for some reason, as well.  BTW, the PP unit study also looked very nice), laymen's books, and technical books. The grounds are beautiful, though you may not have a lot of time for enjoying them.  We had lunch on the porch, next to a large pond full of water-lilies.   We let the girls walk around it by themselves, and Mom and I relaxed and enjoyed the lovely atmosphere. I would definitely recommend paying the extra for the planetarium show.   What they are doing right now is about distance in space, and it shows graphically a lot of things like comparing the distance from the Earth to the sun with the distance from the sun to Alpha Centauri.    Even J liked this a lot. It was fairly expensive, but they offer $5 off per adult ticket (including off the senior ticket, which my mom used), if you are willing to sign up for their mailing list.   We are already on it, anyways, but they didn't care.   You can find it online, but they also had a little sign-up sheet when you come in the door, so you didn't have to have gotten it beforehand. We really, really liked it!  It was nice to have the whole presentation laid out for us, and the kids thought it was way-cool, as well.   It's best for school-aged and above, though a lot of preschoolers were doing it, and they were pretty well-behaved about it.   I would think in a few months the crowds will go down a bit, so wait until fall if you are close to it.    For those who disagree with YE ideas, you probably won't like it as much as we did, but it's still worth doing if you are in the area.  For those who want to teach their kids about YE ideas, I can't think of a better way or place.  It was definitely worth the 4 or so hours we drove to get their from my parent's house, and I would suggest that anyone going near the area take the time to visit the Creation Museum.  We will likely go again, in a few years, the next time we are out there.

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