Springs Preserve shines a light on Las Vegas’ brilliance

If the phrase “lights on” describes any city, it has to be Las Vegas. (Sorry, Paris … )

All those lights make cruising the Strip a must-do. And all those make Las Vegas very visible from space. (Check out a photo taken from the International Space Station, where the emerald-city green of the MGM Grand stands out among the dots of luminous color.)

When it comes to understanding the science behind all those lights, however, you’ll have to venture away from the Strip — and to the Springs Preserve’s Origen Museum, where the exhibit “Playing With Light” continues through Labor Day.

And bring the kids — because many of the 22 featured exhibits are definitely sized for, if not geared to, the younger set.

That seems perfectly appropriate, considering the quote featured at the start of the exhibit: legendary scientist Albert Einstein’s decree that “Play is the highest form of research.”

In “Playing With Light,” the “research” includes stepping inside a giant, triangular column — with mirrors on all three walls, reflecting reflections upon reflections — to experience what it’s like to be inside a kaleidoscope. (Not recommended for those who don’t like looking in a mirror — and be prepared to crawl on your hands and knees to get inside if you’re more than, say, 4 feet tall.)

There’s a dark, smoky “Laser Dodge” room — the kind you’ve seen in multiple movies — where laser beams slice through the empty expanse, creating a crisscrossing web of potential alarm triggers. (Again, it helps to be short enough to duck under the beams if you hope to make it from one side to the other.)

“Oh, my gosh, guys!” one young visitor exclaims as he surveys the room. “Look at this!”

At another nearby exhibit, a mother helps her toddler daughter mix colors by twisting the display’s handles.

Next, they turn their collective attention to a display where the delighted little girl dances when she sees her shadow, multiplied and reproduced in a rainbow of colors projected onto an expanse of blank wall.

As another young visitor exclaims when he sees the spectrum of shadows, “Look at this shadow, Daddy! Cool! The rainbow!”

It’s quite possible to visit “Playing With Light” and do nothing but play.

But the exhibit — created by the Scitech Discovery Centre in Perth, Australia — also features plenty of explanations to illuminate the scientific principles behind all those shadows and rainbows.

“Playing With Light” launches its North American tour with the Springs Preserve stop, according to exhibits curator Aaron Micallef. (The exhibition’s previous tour stop: Kuwait.)

It’s largely unchanged from its original Australian incarnation, he notes, except for a few textual tweaks. (Switching “programme” to “program,” for example.)

Micallef discovered the exhibit during an annual conference, where exhibit producers preview touring exhibitions for science and technology centers.

“We look for something that will meet the mission of the preserve,” emphasizing “science and nature,” Micallef explains.

“Playing With Light” definitely qualifies on that score — but there are a few other criteria it also meets, he adds.

For one thing, “it’s indoors and it’s cool,” making it ideal for Las Vegas’ scorching summer months.

Another key factor: “Playing With Light’s” exhibits encourage “a lot of full-body kinetic movement,” Micallef notes. And that means all those energetic kids have plenty of chances to interact with the displays.

“I popped my head in the other day,” where “the room with the fog machines and lasers” was seeing plenty of action, he recalls. “You get to play the role of a superspy — or maybe a superthief stealing the crown jewels.”

The exhibition’s “choose your own adventure”-style format encourages guests to concentrate on what they like.

For those interested in delving deeper, interactive, push-button stations provide detailed scientific explanations for all the fascinating things happening.

That could mean “drawing” with an infrared “paintbrush,” comparing halogen and fluorescent light through a spectroscope or exploring the mysteries of light filters. (In the latter, you can watch a green pepper turn black under a red light — and observe how a blue filter transforms a green apple into a purple one.)

“It’s one of those exhibits, as you go through it, you can get as far into it as you’d like,” Micallef says. “It’s accessible to a wide number of people,” whether you’re bouncing a laser light from hand to hand (protons at work!) or investigating the physics behind the fun.

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.