Boston Tech Mom has new, informative posts on:
- Boston Area STEM Activities for Kids in September and October
-
Makerspaces for Kids & Teens in Massachusetts
The Boston/Cambridge Innovation Trail — Walking Tours Sept. 22, Oct. 8, and When You Wish
You’ve walked Boston’s Freedom Trail, and now you can walk The Innovation Trail between Boston and Cambridge. The Innovation Trail currently features 21 stops between Government Center and Central Square, highlighting world-changing ideas that have come from our community since the American Revolution. A work in progress — historian Bob Krim has cataloged 400+ innovations from the area — The Innovation Trail already covers anesthesia, vaccines, color movies, the telephone, cameras, email, radar, guidance chips, rubber firehose, the Human Genome Project, and more. There are several opportunities for tours:
- Private guided tours are available via Cambridge Historical Tours.
- The Venture Café in Cambridge will host a free, “sneak peek” mini-tour of the Cambridge portion of The Innovation Trail on September 22, 4PM-5:30PM, in conjunction with Startup Boston Week. It will be led by Scott Kirsner, who wrote about the Innovation Trail in the Boston Globe in July. Pre-register here.
- You can sign up here for a 90-minute public tour on October 8, 10:30AM-12PM ($15), scheduled to align with the Cambridge Science Festival and starting at Toscanini’s Ice Cream (899 Main Street, Cambridge).
- Take your own self-guided tour of the trail, starting from either Boston or Cambridge, with maps and information on The Innovation Trail website.
Science Trivia Challenge for Middle- and High-School Students, Oct. 6
The Cambridge Science Festival and the MIT Club of Boston are hosting the Science Trivia Challenge for teams of middle- and high-school students on October 6, 5PM-9PM at the Broad Institute (415 Main Street, Cambridge). Review how to play and then register your team here. Entry fee is $10 per team ($0 for spectators). Space is limited. Sponsored by MathWorks.
Register for Science on Saturday (Undersea Technologies) at MIT Lincoln Labs, Oct. 22
Registration is now open for the Saturday-morning session of Science on Saturday, on October 22 at 10AM at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory (244 Wood Street in Lexington). The topic will be Undersea Technologies, presented by Lincoln Laboratory’s Andrew March. Learn about sound, sonar, and how sound and robots are used to explore the ocean. Learn how to build a simple remotely operated vehicle that can explore the water, and watch a real underwater vehicle explore an outdoor testing tank all by itself!
All children (5-17 years) must be escorted by an adult, and every adult must be a certified teacher or be escorted by a child or children. Children under 5 are not admitted. Admission is free but each person attending must be registered. Space is limited. Register online. Adults must bring government photo identification. See other rules on the registration pages.
HMSC Public Lecture — Why Sharks Matter: Shark Science and Conservation, Sept. 6
Harvard Museums of Science and Culture will host a free public lecture — Why Sharks Matter: Shark Science and Conservation — on September 6, 6PM-7:15PM. It will take place both in-person (Haller Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge) and online. In either case, register here. Marine conservation biologist Dr. David Shiffman will speak.
Discovery Museum Celebrates 40 Years: Free Community Day, Sept. 10
The Discovery Museum (177 Main Street, Acton) will celebrate its 40th anniversary with an admission-free Community Day on September 10, 9AM-4:30PM. Advance registration is required for all museum visits and opens ten days ahead, or on September 1 for this event. There will be indoor and outdoor activities, mini cupcakes, and a parade.
Red Sox STEM Education Day, Sept. 29
Each year, the Red Sox welcome teachers and their students for STEM Education Day — a morning of STEM lectures and interactive exhibits (8AM-11:30AM), followed by the game at 1:35PM. This year, on September 29, the Boston 25 News Team will talk about weather and there will be an egg-drop experiment off the Green Monster, as well as exhibits by Sunovion, iRobot, JetBlue, Wasabi, Unruly Splats, Project Lead the Way, New England FIRST, and others. Tickets ($12) are for the morning plus the game.
RoboBoston: School Field Trips, Sept. 30; Robot Block Party, Oct. 1
MassRobotics will host RoboBoston, the 5th annual robot block party, on October 1, 11AM-4PM, at Seaport Common (85 Northern Ave, Boston). It’s free and open to the public.
On September 30, RoboBoston will host its School STEM Field Trip Day for schools to send groups of students in Grades 7-12 for 1.5 hours of interactive activities and demonstrations. Space is limited, and schools should apply as soon as possible.
There will also be a Robotics and AI Technical Career Fair on September 30, 4PM-6PM.
Discovery Museum — Science & Engineering Communication Fellows, Apply by Oct. 3
The Discovery Museum (177 Main Street, Acton) seeks Science & Engineering Communication Fellows. Apply by October 3. For further information, email Liz Leahey, Director of STEAM Education. Accepted Fellows will attend professional-development workshops 10AM-3PM on October 22 and November 5, then until early December, consult with education professionals to develop a hands-on activity, and test their hands-on prototypes with Discovery Museum educators. Finally, on December 2, 5PM-8PM, Fellows will meet with the public and share their research and hands-on activities at the Museum;s Meet the Scientists & Engineers event, held during December’s Free Friday Night.
Cambridge Science Festival, Oct. 6-9
The Cambridge Science Festival will be back, in-person, October 6-9 at the Kendall/MIT Open Space (292 Main Street, Cambridge), with a different emphasis each day. Admission is free.
- October 6: Science + Climate — dedicated to all things environmental, renewable, and sustainable
- October 7: Science + Food — the latest in edible chemistry, at a “farmer’s market of the future”
- October 8: Science + Fashion — runway shows, exhibitions, discussion and interaction with designers, makers, engineers, brands, artisans, influencers and the public
- October 9: Science + Carnival — a family-friendly, science-themed, Great American Carnival, noon-4PM featuring a Main Stage, Midway, Side Shows, Walk-abouts, with “competitions and challenges, interactive engineering and hands-on experiments, design workshops and demonstrations, from telescopes to microscopes, from celestial bodies to synthetic bodies, lasers, DNA, the brain, from marine biology to biological machines, from circuit-boards to circus-shows… and very many robots!”