Costumed adventurers reign at the box office when school is out, so why not at Orlando Science Center, too?
All summer long, the exhibition DC Superheroes: Discover Your Superpowers will bring the fun and fulfillment of doing good on a grand scale to kids who’ve just discovered the concept—and to their parents, who remember it fondly from their trips to the comics shop and afternoons in front of the tube.
To be clear: This is an educational and interactive outing with the DC Comics characters as they appear in their old-school printed exploits—not streaming series like Batman: Caped Crusader or this summer’s forthcoming movie Superman.
But that’ll be of little consequence as OSC visitors young and old tour the so-called DC Universe, learning which hero best matches their own personal attributes and then applying those innate aptitudes to thwarting some of the most heinous villains in the comics canon.
From getting a mission assignment from Superman and Supergirl in the Hall of Justice, to prowling the streets of Gotham City with Batman and Robin, to policing the docks with Aquaman and Cyborg, there’ll be puzzles to solve and clues to decipher as the whole family is spurred to unlock their potential as crimestoppers.
So what’s the connection to, you know, science? As devised by the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis—which was responsible for past OSC installations keyed to such properties as Hot Wheels and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—DC Superheroes is meant to reinforce STEM knowledge and critical teamwork skills.
But why should kids have all the fun? Adults will have OSC all to themselves from 8 to 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 31, when the venue hosts the latest installment of its recurrent “Science Night Live.”
The event, an after-hours gathering that’s strictly for those ages 21 and up, allows access to OSC exhibitions as well as food and alcoholic beverages. Attendees will also watch the “Superpowered Science Show,” which will demonstrate how science enables us to mimic the powers of our idols from the comics.
And there’ll be a superhero theme to the hands-on experiments offered in the “Level 4 Dr. Dare’s Lab” as well as superhero trivia to test everybody’s knowledge of the subject. Want to go in with an advantage? Have your kids quiz you before you leave the house.
Orlando Science Center is located at 777 East Princeton Street, Orlando, in Loch Haven Cultural Park. For more information, call or visit the website.
