This Saturday marks the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere—and this week’s distance learning theme is seasons. Join one of our museum educators as she learns what causes these periodic changes in Earth’s conditions by reading The Reason for the Seasons, written and illustrated by Ellie Peterson!

Beginning this Friday, June 19, we’re taking the next step in gradually welcoming visitors back to the Discovery Center by providing outdoor hands-on activity stations on our grounds. Learn more here!

This week’s distance learning theme is planets. Join one of our museum educators as she reads about the planets in our solar system—and so much more—in The Story of Space by Catherine Barr and Steve Williams, illustrated by Amy Husband!

Dreaming of summer trips to the beach? This week we’re exploring different aspects of aquatic systems.

Our oceans provide food, fun, beautiful views- and they’re also a huge part of climate and weather conditions as ocean currents move both water and energy from place to place. Exploring the weather is a topic for another week, but today we’ll look at the factors that help create and direct currents.

In today’s Distance Learning Module, we explored the idea of microgravity and learned that scientists simulate this environment on Earth to help astronauts train for spacewalks. Follow up to the lesson with this all-ages activity, in which we create a “weightless” freefall with water. (Best performed outdoors—this will be messy!)

This week’s Distance Learning theme is aquatics. For today’s lesson, we’re making connections between deep sea and deep space by exploring the “how” and “why” of underwater astronaut training. Let’s “dive in” and get started!

Today, we continue our Vacation Week theme of “deserted island” with a story about navigation and wayfinding. Join one of our museum educators as she reads the Scholastic children’s book The Big Dipper by Franklyn M. Branley, with illustrations by Molly Coxe!

Upcycle leftover packaging to create this cute all-ages cloud mobile!

Make your own celestial “dirty snowball” with common household materials!

a simple all-ages activity

Have you ever traveled far away from home? Did you send a postcard to your friends or family to share the experience with them? Let your imagination take you on a trip faaaaar from Earth, at the very boundaries of our solar system—what might THAT postcard look like?!

Open-ended all-ages activity, courtesy of NASA.

Turn April showers into an opportunity for at-home science! In this all-ages activity, learn how to track rainfall using a simple homemade rain gauge.

Adult supervision required—sharp objects utilized in one step.

Create your own world of mountains and valleys, and watch the effects of a rainstorm!

Appropriate for pre-k and up, with supervision (mess potential!)

Learn about orbits in our solar system by creating a simple, all-ages model.