Astronomy Guided Exploration

Includes 30-minute Solar System Gallery Guided Tour and a related 30-minute hands-on activity. 

Explore the astronomical history of our universe in the Solar System Gallery. Students will encounter interactive displays that allow them to virtually travel to the Moon, learn about gravity, and more. Then, travel to our Universe Gallery to engage with our state-of-the-art OmniGlobe!

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Dinosaur Passage to Pangaea, Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia (Planetarium Show) and all astronomy-themed planetarium shows.

Bright Light

In this illuminating exploration of light and color, students make exciting discoveries as they experiment with lasers, diffraction glasses, and giant water prisms. Through real-life applications, the scientific concepts of refraction, diffraction, and reflection are illustrated with engaging educational activities related to spectrum analysis and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Harmonies in Color (Art Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration), Seeing!, and Cosmic Colors: An Adventure Along the Spectrum (Planetarium Shows).

Circuit Circus

Students become energized as they form a human circuit, experiment with conductors and insulators, and construct various types of circuits. Scientific investigation, problem solving, and cooperative learning engage students in this electrifying educational experience!

Cosmic Colors: An Adventure Along the Spectrum

Cosmic Colors will take you on a wondrous journey across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Discover the many reasons for color, like why the sky is blue and why Mars is red. Take a tour within a plant leaf and journey inside the human eye. Investigate x-rays by voyaging to a monstrous black hole and then back at your doctor’s office. You will even see the actual color of a dinosaur, based on recent evidence. Get ready for an amazing adventure under a rainbow of cosmic light!

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Harmonies in Color (Art Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration) and Bright Light (Class).

Cosmic Colors: An Adventure Along the Spectrum is preceded by a live, presenter-led tour of the current seasonal night sky.

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

NEW for 2019-2020!

Dinosaur Passage to Pangaea

This delightful claymation adventure explains one of the greatest geological events in the history of Earth: the separation of the supercontinent Pangaea. When two children embark on a geology field trip, they are thrown into a fantastic voyage in which they witness incredible geological wonders and explore the mysterious process that created our present day continents.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Solar System Gallery (Guided Tour) or Geology (Guided Exploration) and Frameworks of Absence: Brandon Ballengée (Art Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia

You and your students will follow Rodolfo Coria, a world-renowned Argentinian paleontologist visiting sites of major discoveries in Patagonia, and travel back in time to see these amazing beasts come to life on the giant screen. Patagonia has given us the largest living animal to ever walk the Earth, the titanesque, plant-eating Argentinosaur, and its nemesis, the Giganotosaur, a bipedal carnivore that could easily challenge the famous T-Rex.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Solar System Gallery (Guided Tour) or Geology (Guided Exploration) and Frameworks of Absence: Brandon Ballengée (Art Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

NEW for 2019-2020!

Dream Big: Engineering Our World

Dream Big: Engineering Our World celebrates the human ingenuity behind engineering marvels big and small, and reveals the heart that drives engineers to create better lives for people around the world while transforming the way we think about engineering.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Marbles, Motion, & Magnets, Engineering: Simple Machines, Engineering Encounters, and Robot Design Challenge (Classes).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

Earth’s Wild Ride

Visit a Moon colony in 2081 during a solar eclipse and experience an exciting ride across both the Earth and Moon as a grandfather tells his grandchildren stories of our planet. Your students will learn about eclipses, the ice age, Earth’s water cycle, and the differences between our Earth and Moon.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Weatherwise (Interactive Educational Theater) and Solar System Gallery (Guided Tour) or Astronomy (Guided Exploration).

Earth's Wild Ride is preceded by a live, presenter-led tour of the current seasonal night sky.

Engineering: Simple Machines

As they cooperatively problem-solve in groups, young engineers will investigate the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of objects while building various machines. Exciting hands-on challenges will focus on Newton’s Laws of Motion and the Law of Conservation of Energy. Activities will illustrate the relevance of engineering in daily life as students design and build together.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Dream Big: Engineering Our World and Secrets of Gravity: In the Footsteps of Albert Einstein (Planetarium Shows).

Flight of the Butterflies

Follow the monarchs’ perilous journey, join hundreds of millions of real butterflies in the remote mountain peaks of Mexico, and discover the compelling true story of a scientist’s 40-year search to find the monarchs’ secret hideaway in this beautiful scientific adventure.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with The Traveling Trunk Show (Interactive Educational Theater) and Beetles, Bugs, & Butterflies (Class).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!