September Program Descriptions
Enrichment Programs
Ancient Astronomy
Ages: 7-14
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Explore ancient tools used to understand the cosmos. Learn the purpose for and make your own sundials, astrolabes, and various other ancient astronomy artifacts used to study the universe.
Aqua Investigation
Ages: 11-13
Capacity:20
Length: 45 minutes
The Inner Harbor is a gateway to the Chesapeake Bay. Turn your magnifiers on bay health and explore the role of plants and soil in water quality by sampling water from the Harbor and modeling factors contributing to bay pollution.
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.
Bug Bytes
Ages: 5-7
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Get ready to go on a virtual bug hunt. Learn about metamorphosis, pollinators, decomposers and arachnids while handling and observing live specimens.
Chem-Mystery
Ages: 7-9
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Utilize scientific tools such as microscopes, thermometers, measuring instruments and balances to uncover clues that will help solve a science mystery as you explore some chemical reactions.
Circuits
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 15
Length: 45 minutes
Investigate conductors, insulators, and what is needed to complete a circuit. Compare different types of circuits and enjoy a hands-on circuit building experience.
Circuits Challenge
Ages: 8-12
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Circuits, part two! Take a basic understanding of simple circuits and be charged to think creatively. Working with a team, use a variety of materials to design and build a working circuit solution that meets a challenge.
Cool Tools
Ages: 4-6
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Maximize your senses using science tools to run beginner experiments. Investigate laboratory practices and safety while learning all about the tools scientists use.
Critter Encounters
Ages: 2-4
Capacity: 20
Length: : 30 minutes
They are furry, scaly, slimy and ready to meet you! Explore the remarkable science behind some of the Science Center’s cuddly and not so cuddly critters.
Curds and Whey
Ages 11-18
Capacity: 15
Length: 45 minutes
Cheese making might seem like an ancient art, but it takes an understanding of science to know how it works and learn how milk combines with acids, enzymes or bacteria to produce tasty cheese.
DNA Discovery
Ages: : 8-11
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Analyze your own genetic traits and translate genetic codes to make a unique creature. Utilize laboratory procedures to extract real plant DNA and see it up close and in person.
Drip Drop
Ages: 3-5
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Investigate the fascinating, soothing, and messy world of water play. Try using a pipette to make water drops, explore sink and float, and create watery art. Learn how much water can do!
Einstein’s Spacetime
Ages: 11-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
E = mc2, relativity, and gravity may seem like hard concepts and peculiar principles of physics, but they are involved in some of the most common experiences in your daily life. Question, think and explore like Einstein to create a new understanding of the universe you live in.
Electro-Magnetic Tinkershop
Ages: 9-12
Capacity: 15
Length: 1 hour 45 minutes
Spend some time in our tinkershop and learn about the connections between two invisible forces: electricity and magnetism. Once you understand how to harness these forces you can create all sorts of amazing contraptions. What will you build?
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.
Eye Anatomy
Ages:12-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Work in small groups to dissect preserved animal eyes and learn the anatomy of optics. Put your own eyes to the test to learn about the process of vision, from light to lens to brain lobes.
Fact or Fiction?
Ages: 9-13
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Discover how popular myths got their start and use the principles behind the scientific method as you attempt to disprove several untruths found in your everyday life.
Forensics
Ages: 8-11
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Examine tire track patterns, determine blood types, and analyze inks. By practicing observation techniques used by forensic scientists, you will analyze the evidence and help solve a crime.
Hands On Hands
Ages: 9-15
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Discover how tendons and muscles interact to move your fingers as you make a working model of a human hand. Apply what you learn to reanimate a real chicken foot.
I Fold!
Ages: 8-10
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Paper folding is an art of precision and beauty. Discover the secret mathematics of origami, how it’s used by engineers, and learn some of the basics of this artistry.
It’s a Small World
Ages: 7-10
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
It’s all about magnification. From a droplet of water to a hand lens, look at how an object is magnified. Using both simple tools and microscopes, discover how to explore the microscopic world.
Just Beachy
Ages: 8-10
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Summer is almost over, but there is still time to learn the facts behind your summer vacation! What is sand? Can you really the hear ocean in a seashell? Make waves as you explore the science of the beach.
Keep the Change
Ages: 8-10
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
What’s the difference between melting ice and burning a match? What do baking a cake and exploding fireworks have in common? Try a variety of experiments to discover the difference between physical and chemical changes.
Math Matters
Ages: 10-14
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutesFrom bubbles to flowers, science makes math come to life. Investigate mathematics using nature mirrors, soap films and more to discover how important math is to science.
Matter of Fact
Ages: 7-9
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Is it a solid, liquid or gas? Find out as you explore the physical properties of materials, what happens on a molecular level when things melt or evaporate, and how energy, matter and force work together to create daily phenomena.
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.
Mouse Dissection
Ages: 14-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Work in small groups to actively dissect a preserved mouse specimen and explore mammalian anatomy. Identify and examine organs and uncover muscles and bones.
My Sensational Senses
Ages: 2-4
Capacity: 20
Length: 30 minutes
Look, touch, smell, hear and even taste the science in this engaging experience that explores our amazing senses.
Nanotechnology
Ages: 12-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Observe how chemical reactions and physical properties differ between the large macroscale and the tiny nanoscale. Test out current nano products and model tools scientists use to make and study nanotechnologies.
Now You See It
Ages: 8-10
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Be amazed as you test household items and distinguish which are acids and which are bases. Wear your goggles and gloves and discover what makes ordinary reactions extraordinary.
Observing Light
Ages: 7-14
Capacity: 15
Length: 45 minutes
Investigate the electromagnetic spectrum of light. Discover the use of color filters and why we use different camera filters to look at objects in different wavelengths. Use technology as a tool to discover these phenomena.
Our Star the Sun
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Discover the Sun’s secrets while exploring sunspots, prominences, the Sun’s layers, solar flares, and solar wind.
Polymers and Plastics
Ages: 12-18
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
By creating polymers and investigating their properties, you will gain insight into these common chemicals. Explore how polymers come together, break apart, and react to the world around them.
Speaking for the Trees
Ages: 5-7
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Explore the lessons of Dr. Seuss and The Lorax. Learn about pollution, ecosystems and resources by manipulating physical models of ecosystems.
Squishy Circuits
Ages: 6-8
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Lights will flash, buzzers will buzz and motors will spin! Experience the basics of electricity using battery packs and play dough.
Turn, Turn, Turn
Ages: 7-9
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Toys have so much to teach about science. Tops and gyroscopes will allow you to learn about angular motion, balance, and centrifugal forces.
Water Wonders
Ages: 8-11
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Get your hands wet investigating the unique properties of water. Discover how water is sticky, experiment with solubility and absorption, and learn why it is a very special chemical.
What’s Up Chesapeake Bay?
Ages: 9-11
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Think you really know about the Chesapeake Bay? Discover Maryland’s own estuary and find out just how big our bay watershed is, and encounter some bay inhabitants. Discuss how humans are affecting the bay and how you can effect change.
Where Do They Live?
Ages: 5-10
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Animals occupy so many places in the world. Investigate different habitats and what animals need to live in those places. See if you can discover which habitats our MSC animals come from.
Science On A Sphere
Astro-review
Ages: 7-18
Capacity: 40
Length: 30 minutes
Get an upclose view of a variety of objects in the Solar System.
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 Beyond Earth
Ages: 8-18
Capacity: 40
Length: 30 minutes
Examine locations in our Solar System – both planets and moons – where life might exist.
Rising Waters
Ages: 11-13
Capacity: 20
Length: 45 minutes
Scientists around the globe use visualizations to identify shifting patterns of precipitation and temperature, creating models of climate change that present an increased flood risk for many prone regions. In this multimedia presentation utilizing Science on a Sphere technology, you are introduced to this data and observe variables contributing to rising waters around the planet.
Planetarium
Seasons in the Sky
Ages: 8 and above
Capacity: 144
Length: 45 minutes
Identify what is in the current night sky while exploring seasonal sky changes and phases of the Moon.
Black Holes: Journey into the Unknown
Ages: 12 and above
Capacity: 144
Length: 35 minutes
Consider a place where time stands still. Where the unimaginable becomes reality: welcome to the world of black holes.
Mars Update
Ages: 8 and above
Capacity: 144
Length: 45 minutes
Review the status of the Curiosity lander on Mars and other missions past and future.
One World One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure
Ages: 7 and under
Capacity: 144
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.
Solar System Odyssey
Ages: 10 and above
Capacity: 144
Length: 35 minutes
Take a futuristic journey through our Solar System on a mission to discover a new home to colonize.
Cosmic Cruise
Ages: 10 and above
Capacity: 144
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.