Blast Off! activity at Community Evening

LSC partners with NASA for special NASA-themed Community Evening

LSC News

On March 8, 2023, LSC partnered with NASA for “NASA Night at LSC.” On this night, we offered climate change and other NASA-focused educational content, including special planetarium shows and guest speakers from NASA.

Community Evening Sign

“NASA Night at LSC” was held as one of LSC’s Community Evenings. These are nights that the building is open at no cost to all Jersey City residents, as well as to students and families from qualifying school districts.

In the planetarium, guests enjoyed a “NASA Earth Sciences” presentation. NASA Educator Trena Ferrell beamed in from Maryland to the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium to bring NASA’s discoveries in Earth sciences to life on LSC’s giant dome.

Virtual Presentation with NASA's Trena Ferrell in the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium at Community Evening
NASA Educator Trena Ferrell

Guests in Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium at Community Evening
Guests in the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium

Visitors also enjoyed the “Climate Change: Earth, Mars, Venus” planetarium show. In this show, viewers explored the work that our nearest NASA office, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in Manhattan, is doing to better understand this important topic. The show also took viewers to Venus and Mars to see what our fellow worlds can tell us about climate change on our home planet.

This climate change presentation was led by Ashley Grey, a teacher at Baruch College Campus High School in Manhattan who has been working on climate change projects with GISS, alongside LSC’s Planetarium Educator Nick Wildason-Ferreri.

NYC Teacher Ashley Grey Presenting in the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium at Community Evening
Baruch College Campus High School teacher Ashley Grey

Over in the Joseph D. Williams 3D Science Theater, visitors enjoyed a 3D animated film, “Fly Me to the Moon,” and joined three everyday houseflies as they voyaged to the moon with the historic Apollo 11 mission.

Additional live science demonstrations and activities included “Meet an Animal,” where guests encountered LSC’s resident critters; “Blast Off!”, an explosive demo of how rockets get off the ground; and “Straw Rockets,” a hands-on activity that let guests initiate a mini launch.

Blast Off! activity at Community Evening
Blast Off! live science activity

All exhibitions were open too, including The Great Train Set, Pompeii: The Immortal City, Thomas & Friends: Explore the Rails, and Wild About Animals.

The Science on a Sphere was also open, which allowed guests to see earthquakes, hurricane tracks, sea surface temperatures, plate tectonics, weather patterns and more on our six-foot spherical visualization globe.

Science on a Sphere at Community Evening
Science on a Sphere

Science on a Sphere at Community Evening
Science on a Sphere

The next NASA Night at LSC will be May 10, 2023. Click here to learn more about LSC's Community Evenings.


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