We were attacked from all directions. Balls flew. The kids ducked and fended them off, kicking, jumping and waving their arms. And in the end, they made the list of high scorers. They loved playing virtual soccer.

They blocked the goal at the Louisville Science Center, featuring more than three floors of science fun. We parked under the highway bridge where we enjoyed a beautiful view of the Ohio River and the kids skipped rocks before skipping up the street, and catching a glance of the nearby Louisville Slugger Factory.

While I took care of tickets, the kids tried to encase themselves in giant bub­bles. That experiment met with mixed success, but more experiments waited on the Science Center’s second floor, where Physics is FUNdamental. Unfortu­nately, many attractive items had signs reading, “Sorry this display closed,” but still the kids pulled pulleys, worked levers and played a game of balance and teamwork, “Getting from Here to There.”

My husband and youngest had success with reverse tic-tac-toe and my oldest had fun at the Internet stations in the Louinet Lounge. Meanwhile, my daughter and middle son aced “Watt’s the Score,” matching wits with a robot on questions concerning conservation and recycling.

While I walked from “The World We Create” to the “World Around Us,” our youngest boys crawled through a cave where, reportedly, there were “windows and stuff that tells about stuff.” More detailed animal information abounded at another computer station my older boys found, and my daughter enjoyed comparing and staring at fossils, minerals and rocks.

But for her nothing compared to the display about dams and floods that she described as, “A water thing with balls that roll off a spiral thing, with buttons and flippers that switch lanes, and make dams pop up and go down, and balls that show what floods will do.”

My less verbal oldest enjoyed, “a really cool driv­ing game,” designed to teach the dangers of drinking and driving at the “World Within Us.” Hopefully, even though he’s a few years from his license, he got the message. Regardless, I know he got the exercise intended with “Pump the Premiere” — a giant version of “Dance, Dance Revolution.” The whole family tried it, and decided it was “too hard,” but we all agreed it was fun to watch their dad hop around on it in frustra­tion.

The IMAX film was more relaxing to watch. Michael Douglas narrated Di­nosaurs Alive, but while the title implies living, active dinosaurs the film mostly involved dinosaur bones and paleontologists talking, and brushing dirt and sand off bones. There were only a handful of action sequences and excitement, but the rest of our day at the Louisville Science Center had been packed with both.

Barbara Littner David is a freelance writer.

Louisville Science Center
727 W. Main St. • Louisville, KY 40202
502-561-6100 • louisvillescience.org

Hours
Mon - Thu 9:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Fri - Sat 9:30 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Sun 12 - 6 p.m.

Admission
Combo (exhibits and IMAX):
adults $15; children 2 - 12, seniors 60+ and students 13 to college $12

Exhibits only:
adults $10; children 2 - 12, seniors 60+ and students 13 to college $10

IMAX only:
adults $8; children 2 - 12, seniors 60+ and students 13 to college $6