USA Science and Engineering Festival

Beep, Beep! Class, it’s time for another field trip!

We went to participate in the largest science celebration in the U.S.A.  The kids got to participate in hundreds of hands-on exhibits!

We got up really early and drove down to the 2nd annual USA Science and Engineering Festival last Friday.  It was phenomenal!  The mission of the festival was  “to re-invigorate the interest of our nation’s youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, educational and entertaining science festival in the United States. ”  They did this by appealing to a large diverse audience of all ages and backgrounds. Our kids (4,6,8) were drawn in  the very second we walked into the festival.  Our very first exhibit–The Magic School Bus!

There were over 3,000 science interactive science exhibits plus hundreds of stage shows.  They brought in some of the leading minds in science, technology and engineering.  Major science celebrities included Bill Nye the Science Guy, Mayim Bialik from the Big Bang Theory, and Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from the hit TV Series the MythBusters.

They had book signings with well known authors and awesome displays from the Orion Space Craft to fossils, the Tornado Storm Chaser Vehicle to edible bugs! We spent hours and hours there and only touched the surface of what was on offer.

We all had an amazing time and were so impressed by the professional quality of the exhibits we saw.  We’ll share some highlights with you.

We all enjoyed the exhibits — Insects Rule!

Physics exploration

We learned about tornadoes, earthquakes and more. The kids were fascinated by the inside of the Tornado Storm Chaser Vehicle:

Here’s some more science in action:

There was so much we didn’t see and experience. Because we had just been to the Discovery Festival (see our post about that here) and learned so much about space last week, we opted not to rush to that area — and as a consequence missed out on hundreds more exhibits! There was just way too much to see in one day!

This festival really highlighted how important science is in all our lives.  The experience was incredible. This festival definitely achieved its goal of exciting and engaging my kids.  I hope that there’s a 3rd annual Science and Engineering Festival next year and encourage everyone to attend this or one of the many affiliate and satellite events that took place around the country and around the world!

This is a map of some of the science festivals that took place in the USA, Europe and Australia.

Map courtesy of the USA Science and Technology Festival Website.

Want to learn more? You might want to view the Saturday Highlight Video (or any of the videos) at the very bottom of this page – Watch This!