Museums offer family fun this summer

By Emily Sorensen

Bored of the pool? There’s lots going on at San Diego’s museums this summer.

There are exciting new exhibits at a number of San Diego’s museums, including the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and the San Diego Natural History Museum.

The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is celebrating the Summer of You, where you can watch fan favorite films and enjoy all sorts of hands-on scientific activities like building skyscrapers and flying objects.

Running now through Sept. 5 is the Fan Favorite Film Festival, celebrating 40 years of IMAX films. The top nine vote-earners are playing this summer at the Fleet. Each week, a different Festival film plays twice a day, Friday through Thursday. From Friday, July 19 through Thursday, July 25 is “Dolphins,” from 2000.

Kids can learn, build and explore science and architecture in Block Busters, where you can use up to 15,000 KEVA blocks to build everything from sculptures to skyscrapers. Also check out the Tinkering Studio, where children can make origami and Spirograph artwork, design and construct simple mechanical toys from recycled materials, build marble “roller coasters” using tubes and ramps or create “digital bling” using colorful LED lights, batteries and accessories, among many other activities.

Beginning Friday, Aug. 2, enjoy the Fleet’s new exhibit, “On the Fly: Technology Takes Off,” focused on Unarmed Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The exhibit includes demonstrations and informational exhibits that will tell the history and uses of UAVs by police, fire, Coast Guard and more.

The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Films play in the Heikoff Giant Dome Theater on the hour starting at 11 a.m. during summer, and the Tinkering Studio is open noon to 4:45 p.m. every day.

Travel back in time to learn about prehistoric mammals at the San Diego Natural History Museum, with the new exhibit, “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age,” now open.

The 7,500-square-foot exhibition includes a replica of a 40,000-year-old, frozen baby mammoth specimen named Lyuba, discovered by a Siberian reindeer herder and two of his sons in 2007. The exhibition includes not only a replica of Lyuba’s preserved body, but CT scans and other scientific evidence that confirms existing theories about her species.

The Natural History Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.