U.S. Senator Cory Booker visited Liberty Science Center (LSC) on August 25, 2026 to announce a $559,000 award from the U.S. Department of Education. This funding supports the launch of a portable planetarium initiative that will bring the wonders and joy of Space, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) to underserved children throughout the state.

Sen. Booker selected LSC’s community project for a Congressionally Directed Spending award, which was included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. Through this new portable planetarium initiative, LSC will expand access to immersive STEM education for New Jersey students and communities.

“Sen. Booker has longed shared his love and amazement for the vastness of the universe,

other galaxies, and space missions, a passion that dates to his own childhood,” said Paul Hoffman, President and CEO of Liberty Science Center. “This very generous grant to our center for the new portable planetarium programming is a sterling manifestation of his commitment to ensure that countless thousands of children across New Jersey can experience the same wonders of science.”

As home to the largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, LSC will develop new workshops leveraging the new portable planetarium and two new vehicles to deliver astronomy and Earth sciences programming to students of all ages across New Jersey. This new immersive portable planetarium experience will greatly enhance accessibility to these initiatives in schools, community centers, after-school organizations, and other venues.

During his visit, Sen. Booker experienced the portable planetarium firsthand alongside 9th grader Shanice Grazette, one of LSC’s Neer Peers through its partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Hudson County. Grazette shared what she has learned through the summer program as they explored the universe together inside the dome.

The new portable planetarium builds on a highly successful pilot program LSC launched earlier this year with the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County and Jersey City Public Schools. That program introduced students to technology skills and STEM careers, as well as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) missions and projects, like the Artemis II Mission and James Webb Space Telescope.

This new funding will also enable LSC to recruit, hire, and train new planetarium educators to deliver offsite programming, and to develop new classroom workshops that focus on astronomy and earth science and introduce students to NASA content, lunar phases, ocean temperatures, and storm tracking.

LSC offers a robust catalog of STEM workshops and has experience developing new workshops and planetarium programs. For example, Science on a Sphere programs visualize data sets from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Through these datasets, students can explore Earth and its systems, including global images and animations of earthquakes, hurricane tracks, sea surface temperatures, plate tectonics, and weather patterns.

Learn more about LSC’s Planetarium Educational Program here and Science on a Sphere programs here.