In their latest tweet, the organizers of the Cambridge Science Festival say they have too much going on to fit in one post. Serious understatement. As noted below, even a single day’s events pushes us way beyond recommended post length. The expansive, nine-day festival begins next Saturday April 30 and dovetails with MIT’s open house.
Why Cambridge? John Durant, the director of the MIT Museum, a key event sponsor, said he noticed the need for a festival as soon as he arrived from England in 2006. Science festivals are common in Europe and it was clear that Cambridge had all the raw materials for one.
“But, I could also see that it wasn’t obvious to someone who wasn’t plugged in,” he said in an NNB interview. The city’s scientific community needed more visibility. “Instead of facing inward to itself, it could face outward.”
More from Durant coming up here, along with ongoing updates and teases.
In the meantime, check out the festival blog, or the website.
Here’s a listing for the day one, April 30 events:
9:00am – 1:00pm
Inspiring Minds: Meet Women in Science
Museum of Science – Blue Wing Level 1
Meet dynamic women who love their careers in science and engineering! Hear them describe their work and experiences in fields ranging from archaeology and astrophysics to marine biology and weather forecasting. Then, try out exciting experiments in related fields at our Technology Tables. Find out how you can become an inspired scientist.
Cost: Included with Museum Admission
9:00am – 5:00pm
Voices Without Faces, Voices Without Races
Museum of Science – Art-Science Gallery, Blue Wing Level 1
To organize and simplify the world around us, we use broad strokes to label people and places, often relying on stereotypes. These simplifications stand in marked contrast to the rich and complex ways in which we identify ourselves, our neighborhoods, and our hometowns. Boston’s long history of diversity and change is unknown to many and often overshadowed by well-known periods of racial tension and conflict. Today, the Greater Boston area is home to a wealth of ethnicities and cultures, a vivid tapestry exemplified in the neighborhoods along Route 28, which stretches from country to the north, through suburbs and manufacturing towns, past the Museum and through the heart of Boston, and down to Cape Cod. Sound artist Halsey Burgund and the Museum of Science collected the voices of over 250 people who live along the Route 28 corridor. The result is Burgund’s audio installation Voices Without Faces, Voices Without Races, a compelling collage of personal stories that reveal how we are all different and how we are the same. Listening to the voices of people living in towns along this one street removes the veneers we so often see through a car window and uncovers the lush fabric of diversity that is the Greater Boston area. Funding for this exhibit provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities Fund.
Cost: Included with Museum Admission
10:00am – 4:00pm
Live Science Presentations
Museum of Science Exhibit Halls
Take in the Museum of Science’s live programs on such topics as live animals, optical illusions, and current science.
Cost: Included with Museum Admission
10:00am – 4:00pm
Annosphere
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway
See the seasons change before your eyes, as the hand-crafted, brass and mahogany annosphere cycles night and day in minutes. In the style of 19th century scientific instruments, the annosphere mechanically models the earth-sun relationship. Like a sundial, the annosphere uses light to tell time with a moving shadow. It recreates sunrise and sunset, the solstices and the equinoxes, for any place on earth.
Cost: Free
10:00am – 5:00pm
Crack the Code at the second MIT Museum Puzzle Hunt
MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Avenue
Think DaVinci Code, as you solve the MIT Museum’s 2011 puzzle mystery and discover the long-lost secret of MIT founder William Barton Rogers! Bring a team of about 2-6 family members or friends (best for middle school students and up), search the galleries for clues and see if you can crack the code. No advance registration needed; come anytime. All teams that complete the puzzle will get a reward, but the first five teams to solve the mystery will get special goodie bags! Be prepared for a challenge – this hunt is written specially for MIT’s 150th anniversary by members of the National Puzzlers’ League.
Cost: Free
10:00am – 5:00pm
Open House: MIT Museum Inside Out
MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Avenue
The MIT Museum turns itself inside out. Go behind the scenes of the Museum and explore unique artifacts from MIT’s history, as well as innovations in art, science and technology in Cambridge and beyond. The day’s programs will feature tours, hands-on activities, and a chance for visitors of all ages to see the Museum like never before.
Cost: Free
10:00am – 5:00pm
Free Day at the MIT Museum
MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Avenue
Visit the MIT Museum for FREE! Discover high-tech artifacts, research prototypes, intriguing scientific instruments, historic photographs, amazing holograms and even ingenious kinetic sculptures!
Cost: Free
11:00 – 11:30am
Nature Storytime at Harvard Museum of Natural History
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street
Join museum volunteers for readings of stories and poems designed to engage the next generation of explorers with themes related to the museum’s galleries—dinosaurs, animals, birds, bugs, minerals. For children 6 and under. Free with museum admission.
Cost: $9-$6, free under 3
11:00am – 4:00pm
MIT: Under the Dome
MIT Campus
MIT is opening its doors! Come one, come all. Dive into hundreds of activities in architecture, engineering, aeronautics and astronautics, humanities and arts, science, biotechnology, management and entrepreneurship, energy and the environment, transportation, and the history and culture of MIT. Check out the full listing of activities!
For more information please contact MIT150openhouse@mit.edu
.
Cost: Free
11:00am – 4:00pm
MIT Physics Demonstration Exhibition
MIT, 60 Vassar St., Room 26-152
Explore interactive desktop experiments focusing on such areas as kinematic and dynamic motion, electrostatics, (electro)magnetism, resonance and oscillations. Larger demonstrations will be on hand for investigation of physical phenomenon but also to present the more theatrical aspects of a compelling lecture for a large audience. Finally, displayed on the many projection screens in the TEAL classroom will be screenings of our ever expanding collection of videos, available on the web, of those demonstrations either too elaborate or dangerous to present in the usual classroom setting. Experienced Technical Instructors will be on hand throughout the event to present topics, assist with equipment, and elucidate concepts.
Cost: Free
11:00am – 4:00pm
Astronomy Open House @ MIT
MIT McNair Building, 70 Vassar Street
Astronomy Open House @ MIT will open the doors of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI). Astronomy Open House @ MIT features a museum-like environment with several stations that showcase current research in astronomy and astrophysics carried out by MKI researchers, and science education activities facilitated by MKI staff and high school students. Stations include a science exhibit on the Chandra X-ray Observatory, live presentations and demonstrations by MKI researchers, interactive multimedia exhibits, hands-on activities, planetarium shows, and “children’s corner.” There is also the opportunity to sign up – on site – for tours of the Operations Control Center for the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Cost: Free
11:00am – 4:00pm
Camera Culture
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, E14-474
We focus on creating tools to better capture and share visual information. The goal is to create an entirely new class of imaging platforms that have an understanding of the world that far exceeds human ability and produce meaningful abstractions that are well within human comprehensibility. We are designing cameras that can look around a corner, a 2 dollar clip on with your cell phone that can create a prescription for your eyes, new interfaces so that even a grandma can build sophisticated computer vision applications, a glasses free 3D display, a bi-directional screen that allows interaction with the screen and many more!! Visit us to explore novel displays and next generation cameras, building your personal computer vision applications or just to learn more about how cameras work!!
Cost: Free
12:00 – 1:00pm
Solar Lunch
The plaza in front of the Museum of Science
Observe the sun and possibly sunspots and solar flares through the Museum’s safe solar telescope. Note: Weather permitting!
Cost: Free
12:00 – 4:00pm
Brain and Mind
MIT Brain & Cognitive Sciences Complex, Building 46, 43 Vassar Street
Celebrate MIT150 exploring the most complex organ in your body – your brain! Join MIT faculty and students, take tours of the MRI facility and enjoy family activities.
Cost: Free
12:30 – 5:15pm
CSI Aquatic: Virtual Reality Enters the Real World
Maynard Ecology Center and Black’s Nook Pond
You wake up in a world that looks much like your own… but it’s different… You can breathe underwater, you can travel through time and you have special environmental sensors that help you solve mysteries in the world… It’s a good thing you’re here! Because we just found out about a doozie of a mystery and we could REALLY use your help! Join Dr. K and her detective team to unravel the mystery at Black’s Nook. You’ll be transported to a virtual world with amazing features then take what you know into the real world and collect samples like a real scientist. You’ll need to use all of your powers in order to figure out what’s going on. During this adventure you’ll explore an ecosystem mystery using tools and knowledge from both the real and virtual worlds. Participation is limited. Please email Amy Kamarainen kamaraam@gse.harvard.edu to RSVP for the event by Sunday, April 16th. For a short video about the CSI Aquatic activity from last year, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJp3tCLUYK4
Cost: Free
2:00 – 2:30pm
Nature Storytime at Harvard Museum of Natural History
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street
Join museum volunteers for readings of stories and poems designed to engage the next generation of explorers with themes related to the museum’s galleries—dinosaurs, animals, birds, bugs, minerals. For children 6 and under. Free with museum admission. Also offered Saturday and Sunday at 11 am. Sunday morning admission is free to Mass. residents.
Cost: $9-$6, free under 3
2:00 – 4:00pm
Staying Safe & Secure Online
Cambridge Public Library
Have you ever been infected by a computer virus or experienced online fraud? Our electronic world poses diverse threats to our online security that have very real financial and personal consequences. Viruses and other malware, identity theft, credit card fraud, social media threats, cyber stalking – are all among the supernumerary risks that we face in our electronic world. Come learn what you can do in very practical terms to protect and secure your digital life. By the end of this course you will have a tool to arm yourself and shield your digital world. Join us for a down to earth, jargon free and fun exploration and learn the practical ways you can safeguard your identity, reputation and financial health.
Cost: $0.00
3:30 – 4:30pm
Once and Future Giants: What Ice Age Extinctions Tell Us About the Fate of Earth’s Largest Animals
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street
Author talk and booksigning with Sharon Levy. Until about 13,000 years ago, North America was home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that is now our city streets and suburban lawns. In her new book, Once and Future Giants, science writer Sharon Levy digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene extinction events worldwide, showing how an understanding of this history—and our part in it—is crucial for protecting elephants, polar bears, tigers and other endangered megafauna. Included free with Museum Admission.
Cost: Free with Musueum Admissions
4:00 – 4:30pm
Lightning!
Museum of Science – Theater of Electricity
Museum of Science – Theater of Electricity – Indoor bolts spark explorations into lightning, electric charge, and storm safety using the Museum’s giant Van de Graaff Generator, invented in Cambridge!
Cost: Included with Museum Admission
8:00 – 10:00pm
Breaking the Code
Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave.
Hugh Whitemore’s elegant and deeply moving play about brilliant British mathematician Alan Turing reveals connections between his cracking of the Nazi’s ‘unbreakable’ Enigma Code and his refusal to lead a closeted life. Turing’s expansive spirit embraced seeming contradictions: gay man and war hero, marathon runner and Disney film fan, he envisioned a ‘universal machine’ and set the stage for modern computer technology. Part of MIT’s 150th Anniversary Celebration. Followed by conversation led by guest scientists from MIT.
Cost: Ticket range $20-$40
All Day
A Walk Through Time – 4.6 Billion Years of Earth History in Half a Mile
Memorial Drive between Mass. Ave. and Wadsworth Street
The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and many incredible events have occurred during its long and storied history – the formation of the oceans, the origin of life, the first animals, the rise and fall of dinosaurs, and the appearance and evolution of our own species, just to name a few. Take a half-mile walk along the Charles River between Massachusetts Avenue and Wadsworth Street as you explore a scaled-down version of the geologic timeline where each inch represents 145,000 years. Signs along the way will show you when some of these amazing changes and innovations have occurred throughout Earth’s history and will give you a new perspective on the immensity of geologic time. You will also learn about how geologists figure out how many millions or billions of years ago these events really took place, highlighting some of the important contributions from researchers at MIT.
Those with web-enabled smart phones will be able to explore each event in more detail on our accompanying website; instructions for accessing in-depth content, images, and links will be provided at both ends of the walk.
The timeline will be up for the entire length of the Festival for visitors to explore on their own, and guided tours will be offered as well. Each guided tour will last approximately 45 minutes and will be led by professional (and personable!) geologists and paleontologists accompanied by high school science apprentices.
Guided Tour Dates and Times:
Saturday April 30th at 11 AM and 1 PM
Sunday May 1st at 11 AM and 1 PM
Saturday May 7th at 11 AM and 1 PM
Sunday May 8th at 11 AM and 1 PM
Cost: Free