January Program Descriptions
Enrichment Programs
Art and the Cosmic Connection
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Discover science through art. Learn about our solar system with art in mind. Explore the geology of planetary objects and create art inspired by planetary images.
Build a Dam
Ages: 9-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Build and test your own dams. Discover the forces that act on dams, and how engineers make sure they are strong enough for the job.
Capturing the Sun
Ages: 12-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Learn how to harvest light energy from the sun as you fabricate and test eco-friendly solar cells made from blackberry juice
Cardboard Engineers
Ages: 10-14
Capacity: 20
Length: 90 minutes, double session
Design and construct your own working mechanical toys. By engineering simple machines from cardboard, delve into how cams, levers, and linkages work to create robotic motion.
Circuit Circus
Ages: 6-8
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Draw with a singing pencil and make a circuit with play dough in this introduction to electricity. Look for lights and listen for tunes as we explore conductors and insulators with everyday materials.
Dry Ice: How Cool is That?
Ages: 9-13
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Using dry ice, explore some of carbon dioxide’s (CO2) special properties. Investigate phenomena related to density and states of matter. Discover how a fire extinguisher works, freeze bubbles and look at how this common substance is connected to climate change.
Eeeek - A Mouse!
Ages: 9-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Explore how people interact with computers, from simple devices in use every day, to new technologies that are changing the way people use computers. Then build your own controller for a computer game.
Engineered by Design
Ages 8-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Imagine, plan, create, test, and improve. Engineers follow a strategic path when presented with a problem to solve. Engage your inner engineer while you design, build, and test your own solution to a specific challenge.
Galileoscopes
Ages: : 10-18
Capacity: 15
Length: 45 minutes
Time: 45 minutes
Build your own telescope similar to what Galileo first used and take it home to make your own observations.
The Goldilocks Problem
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 10
Length: 45 minutes
Too hot? Too cold? Just right! Measure temperature and make comparisons using different methods, while conducting experiments to explore the faulty thermodynamics of the popular Golidilocks and the Three Bears fairy tale.
Hardworking Plants
Ages: 4-6
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Where would we be without plants? Dissect a real seed to see how it all starts. Learn how a seed grows, identify parts of a plant, and find out how water gets into a plant.
Healthy Habits
Ages: 3-5
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Wash, wash, wash your hands until they’re nice and clean. Make sure you reach all those tough spots when brushing your teeth. Fill your plates with foods that are good for you. Explore how these healthy habits protect your body and keep out grimy germs.
Hearts and Lungs
Ages: 10-14
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Construct working models to understand how hearts pump blood and lungs inflate and deflate. Examine preserved specimens from real animals and explore the anatomy of the circulatory and respiratory systems.
Hertz's Wavepool
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Learn what light and sound have in common as you dive into the deep end to experience the wonders of waves. Crank up the amplitude, find the right frequency, and let those waves fly.
Is It Alive?
Ages: 10-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
We define life in different ways, but everyone agrees that certain characteristics are common to living things. Explore what it means for something to be alive and carry out an experiment to see if you can detect life.
Judobots – Hydraulic Battle Bots
Ages: 12-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 90 minutes, double session
Explore the science behind hydraulic systems. Create, build, and adapt a Judobot with a hydraulic system that powers a lifting arm on a pivot. Judobots can be used in friendly competition or for individual science fun.
Light It Up with LEDS
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Review the basics of simple circuits and switches as you create your own clip-on LED light to take home.
Magnificent Magnets
Ages: 5-8
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
They push and pull, repel and attract, but can they make music? Learn all about the amazing abilities of magnets and their uses in the world. Utilize what you learn to make a working speaker.
Moon Phases and Eclipses
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Explore phases and features of the Moon and make a phase clock for use at home.
Ready, Aim, Point
Ages: 10-18
Capacity: 25
Length: 45 minutes
Show off your star identification skills in this round robin challenge. Along the way, special features among the stars will be highlighted.
Rover Races
Ages: 10-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Become the rover on a team that includes a driver, timer, and judge. In this race, finishing the course at all takes priority over how long it takes to finish. Learn about the latest Mars mission and what it takes to be a Mars Rover Driver.
Salty Science
Ages: 6-8
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Salt is more than sodium chloride. Use science tools to uncover the differences between table salt, kosher salt, Epsom salt, and rock salt. Develop a hypothesis about why you use these salts for different purposes and then test it out as the scientific process guides an exploration of salts.
Science Fair Boot Camp
Ages: 12-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
From hypothesis to conclusion, carry out a complete scientific process to test the value of various paper towel brands’ absorbencies. Following the scientific method, you will get comfortable with performing a controlled experiment and analyzing the collected data.
Secret World of Trash
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Rubbish, waste, refuse, junk---everyone produces it, but how much do you know about trash? What can you learn about yourself and your past from it? Engage in this unconventional and messy investigation of garbage.
Simply Circuits
Ages: 9-11
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Discover some bright ideas about electricity. Spark up a conversation about the difference between an insulator and a conductor. Construct closed loop paths to achieve perfect circuitry.
Slingshot Rockets
Ages: 7-9
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Learn about some of the basic principals of rocket design. Turn stored energy into kinetic energy as you build and launch these rubber-band powered rockets while attempting to hit specific targets.
Solar Power
Ages: 10-14
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Warm up to renewable energy and explore the applications of solar power. Be enlightened through a hands-on photovoltaic activity on how the Sun’s rays can generate electricity. Sunshine helpful, but not necessary.
Sorting Out Our Senses
Ages: 7-9
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
You can all name your five senses, but do you understand how they help you make sense of the world? What is sound and how do you hear it? Why do you see colors? Are your different senses connected? Investigate these questions and more in this introduction to the science behind our senses.
Tesla's Tinkering Studio
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Welcome to Tesla’s Tinkering Studio, where the science is electrifying! Explore electromagnetism with magnificent magnets, static shockers, and conductive circuits.
Under Pressure
Ages: 5-8
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Can liquid grow? Will a gas shrink? Investigate a little bit about the stuff that’s all around us: matter! Utilize what you learn to develop a cool science toy to take home.
Water, Water, Everywhere
Ages: 3-5
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Water can be a solid, liquid, or gas. Water can be frozen or melted, and it can grow and shrink. The question is, can you make water? Perform an experiment to find out!
Ziplock Chemistry
Ages: 9-13
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Conduct your own chemical reactions inside a plastic bag and observe what happens. Record and share your results to uncover how matter and energy are transformed during this inquiry.
Planetarium
Black Holes: Journey into the Unknown
Ages: 12 and above
Capacity: 140
Length: 35 minutes
Consider a place where time stands still. Where the unimaginable becomes reality: welcome to the world of black holes.
Cosmic Cruise
Ages: 10 and above
Capacity: 140
Length: 45 minutes
Begin and end on Earth, but in between, cruise through the Solar System and out beyond the Milky Way for a fresh perspective of our place in the universe.
One World One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure
Ages: 7 and under
Capacity: 140
Length: 35 minutes
Follow Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Elmo as they explore the night sky with Hu Hu
Zhu, a Muppet from the Chinese co-production of Sesame Street.
Plotting Planets
Ages: 9 and above
Capacity: 140
Length: 45 minutes
Earth and all planets orbit the Sun – and most planets are easily observed in the sky. Find out which ones are currently visible and how and why all planets appear to move among the stars.
Seasons in the Sky
Ages: 8 and above
Capacity: 140
Length: 45 minutes
Identify what is in the current night sky while exploring seasonal sky changes and phases of the Moon.
Solar System Odyssey
Ages: 10 and above
Capacity: 140
Length: 35 minutes
Take a futuristic journey through our Solar System on a mission to discover a new home to colonize.
We Are Aliens
Ages: 9 and above
Capacity: 140
Length: 35 minutes
Explore how our understanding of life on Earth guides the hunt for alien life elsewhere in the Universe.
Science On A Sphere
Earth Alive
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 40
Length: 30 minutes
Explore what’s occurring on Earth the day of your visit, and see images from the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Life in the Solar System
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 40
Length: 30 minutes
Examine locations in our solar system – both planets and moons – where life might exist.
Moons of the Solar System
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 40
Length: 30 minutes
Our Solar System has more moons than planets. Come explore a sampling of these moons.
Our Closest Star
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 40
Length: 30 minutes
Review basic facts about the Sun, including how big, how far, and how hot it is. Solar features related to magnetism come to light as you learn about the sunspot cycle and anticipate 2013 as a year of “Solar Max”.
Parents Only Session
Maximize Your Field Trips
Ages: Adult
Capacity: 15
Length: 45 minutes
Want to get the most out of your field trips? Learn some insider tips for organizing trips, and explore opportunities for planning educational, unique, and fun excursions that appeal to the whole family.
*Note: Activities are designed for adult home school instructors.
IMAX
Africa the Serengeti
Ages: 8 and up
Capacity: 390
Length: 40 minutes
The first large format Africa epic, the film follows more than 1.5 million animals as they travel 500 miles across the plains of the Serengeti—a place where life and death dramas are enacted daily. Experience the heart-pounding chorus of hooves and the amazing spectacle of wildebeest and zebra as far as the eye can see. Also featured are some of Africa’s greatest predators including lions, cheetahs, crocodiles, and others—all in pursuit of the migrating prey. Africa the Serengeti is narrated by James Earl Jones.
Beavers
Ages: 4 and up
Capacity: 390
Length: 35 minutes
It’s a timeless tale of action and adventure following the life and rich aquatic habitat of one of nature’s greatest engineers set against the broad canvas of the majestic Canadian Rockies. Trek through the Canadian Rockies with a family of beavers as they fell trees, construct their lodge, evade the forest’s predators and transform their environment.
Forces of Nature
Ages: 8 and up
Capacity: 390
Length: 40 minutes
Witness the awesome spectacle of earthquakes, volcanoes, and severe storms as you follow scientists on their quests to understand how these natural disasters are triggered. Watch first hand as volcanoes erupt, earthquakes tremble and tornadoes lash the sky, and explore the origins and effects of these fascinating natural forces. A National Geographic production.
The Human Body
Ages: 10 and up
Capacity: 390
Length: 40 minutes
Witness the many hidden miracles that happen every day inside the male and female body, using remarkable inner body photography.
Ring of Fire
Ages: 8 and up
Capacity: 390
Length: 40 minutes
Travel the great circle of seismic activity ringing the Pacific Ocean that is home to half a billion people and three quarters of the world’s 600 active volcanoes. Explore Mount St. Helens, Japan’s Mt. Sakurajima and the aftermath of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. See how local populations living in the shadow of potential destruction cope with the imminent danger.
Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure
Ages: 10 and up
Capacity: 390
Length: 40 minutes
Follow the extraordinary true story of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Their ship Endurance, caught in pack ice and eventually crushed, Shackleton and a crew member set off on a remarkable journey across barren seas to seek rescue boats for the remaining crew. All 28 of Shackleton’s men survived nearly two years in the Antarctic as Shackleton fulfilled his promise of returning with a rescue team. The film includes original still photography and 35mm motion picture footage from the actual expedition as well as three modern day mountaineers retracing Shackleton’s journey across the mountains and glaciers of South Georgia Island.
To the Arctic 3D
Ages: 8 and up
Capacity: 330
Length: 40 minutes
Journey to the top of the world in a tale of Arctic survival. Explore the lives of a mother polar bear and her two seven-month-old cubs. Viewers will navigate the changing Arctic wilderness the polar bears call home and watch their struggle to survive in a frigid environment of melting ice, glaciers, waterfalls and snow-bound peaks.