Curious young minds flock to 1st Virginia Science Festival
When asked if he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up, Carson Ray is quick to correct. He wants to be an astronomer.
But on Saturday, the 9-year-old was still interested in what astronauts carry with them to space. Underneath NASA’s “Earth Dome” tent on Virginia Tech’s Drillfield, Carson examined pouches of space food. After all, the information may come in handy when he dresses up as an astronaut later this month to go trick-or-treating.
Hundreds of people attended the first day of the first-ever Virginia Science Festival, organized by the Science Museum of Western Virginia in collaboration with Virginia Tech. The festival started Saturday in Blacksburg and continues throughout the week, ending Oct. 11 in Roanoke.
“Carson’s really interested in stars,” Lindsey Ray said of her son. “So we’re super excited about [the festival]. We live in Roanoke so we’re also going to check out some of the stuff there next week.”
Many of the exhibits — scattered across the Drillfield, at the Moss Arts Center, at the Inn at Virginia Tech and in a number of other campus buildings — provided demonstrations and hands-on activities for children.
“The little ones come in, their eyes light up, they point at the rocket launches, and that makes it all worth it,” NASA spokesman Jeremy Eggers said. “It’s all about inspiring the next generation.”
The next generation was out in full force. Holding their parents’ hands or climbing out of strollers, children practiced putting casts on stuffed animals with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Science. They made lava lamps with the 4-H club. They learned how viruses spread through a virtual zombie-themed game. They petted a burro and sheep, saw bees inside a hive, learned about civil engineering by building a tower with toothpicks and candy, and detected radiation in everyday objects.
“It’s about inspiring younger generations in science, technology, engineering and math,” said science museum director of development and marketing Michael Hemphill. “The idea is to celebrate science in a true festival … to make science fun.”
Though the main activities are happening in Blacksburg and Roanoke, events bearing the Virginia Science Festival brand will take place in other areas, including Abingdon, Bedford, Lynchburg, Danville, Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia.
Hemphill said that once the title of Virginia Science Festival was claimed, “we had some pretty big shoes to fill to provide for other parts of the state.”
But, Hemphill said, very little recruitment was necessary. School systems, libraries and other organizations through the state immediately wanted to include their already-planned events as part of the festival.
The Science Festival Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, awarded the museum a $10,000 matching fund grant in 2013, which provided the seed money. Representatives for the offices of Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine were included in the planning process and saw potential for something bigger, museum officials have said.
Exhibitors and sponsors have embraced the idea, science museum officials have said. Appalachian Power Co. pledged $25,000 early on. The Science Museum of Western Virginia will be open free of charge Oct. 11 thanks to a sponsorship by WDBJ (Channel 7).
Hemphill said having the festival in Blacksburg was an obvious choice because of the partnership with Virginia Tech and “all of the research and technological achievements that take place here.”
Parv Sethi, a geology professor at Radford University, said Tech is the perfect location because festival attendees “are only literally or metaphorically a few steps away from a career in these fields in the buildings that surround us.”
“It gives me hope to see young people, both males and females, really getting curious about all this,” Sethi said. “Hopefully the magic will stay with them. The festival is a fantastic thing, and I would love to see it become an annual event.”
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