Chemical Education Today
ACS National Meeting
Free Time in Boston? by Lin W. Morris
You’ve finished writing the paper you will present. You know the workshops and presentations you want to attend. Travel arrangements are set, your Palm Pilot is loaded with the booth numbers of the vendors you want to visit at the Exhibition. You’re looking forward to Boston in August. You will be in meeting rooms soaking up innovative and interesting theories and practices in chemistry. At the Exhibition you have an opportunity for a hands-on look at new equipment, materials, and supplies for your classroom and lab. But what about some time for just recreation and relaxing? You will be in Boston, home of Paul Revere, the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Pops. Make plans now for your free time. It is easy if you go online. Try the City of Boston’s Web site at http:// www.cityofboston.gov/visitors. Click on Calendar or Calendar of Events. Clicking on a date in the August calendar gives a list of events being held on that date. One-day-only events are highlighted in blue, on-going events are marked in green. Each event has a More Information button. For example, clicking on More Information at the Walking Tour of the Freedom Trail gives you the opportunity to take a virtual tour of 16 historic sites, plus getting information for a real walking tour. There are super photos and detailed instructions for getting to and from the Freedom Trail by subway, car, commuter rail, even a commuter boat! For maps, schedules, and fares, click on How to Get There. The Boston Convention and Visitors’ Bureau’s site at http://www.bostonusa.com/visitor/visitor.php has a comprehensive list of what to do and how to get there. You can make reservations, buy tickets, even purchase souvenirs online (or phone for a travel packet, 1-888-SEE-BOSTON). Click on Museums & Attractions. There are 345 places listed, each linked to an information page with name, address, phone, fax, hours, and in some cases, travel directions. CityPass, the first item on the list, enables you to
purchase tickets to six of Boston’s most famous tourists sites: JFK Library and Museum, New England Aquarium, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Science, Harvard Museum of Natural History, and The Skywalk Observatory at Prudential Center. A more selective search on science yields 23 science museums with links to each. Item 14, the Museum of Science, may be the largest and most familiar. It is a world-renowned educational institution with more than 400 interactive participatory exhibits featuring live animal and physical science demonstrations, courses, traveling exhibits, a computer center, the Mugar Omni Theater, and Charles Hayden Planetarium. Visitors can explore the world around them, see daily live presentations, attend the science theatre, and see 15-foot lightning bolts. More information about the Museum of Science is at www.mos.org; email information is available at
[email protected]. The Exhibit Halls are open daily 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Fridays 9 a.m.–9 p.m. On the T, take the Lechmere Green Line subway to the Science Park stop. (The CHED Social Hour and Dinner, Saturday evening, August 17, will be at the Museum of Science.) For those hoping to visit the Computer Museum, it was closed to the public at 300 Congress Street, Boston, in 1999. It has joined forces with the Museum of Science, but its collection of artifacts now resides at The Computer Museum History Center in Moffett Field, California, http:// www.computerhistory.org. If you are spending a little time in the Boston area, go to http://www.massvacation.com, where clicking on Site Map presents a grand chart of Things to Do, Places to Go, and ! (special events). Makes you want to move to Massachusetts. So there are lots of things to see and do in Boston in August —go to Fenway Park, take a sunset cruise, walk the Freedom Trail, visit the Museum of Fine Arts, pay a return visit to the Museum of Science, see the U. S. S. Constitution… Boston in August, so much to see, so much to do.
photos Morton Z. Hoffman
The Charles River basin toward the Museum of Science. Reflecting pool, Christian Science complex.
914
Fenway Park: Go BoSox!
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 79 No. 8 August 2002 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
