Summer Activities at the Museum

June 1st – August 30 • The River Lab
Hands-On science exhibits that include:
Hands-on science activities related to the Rio Grande.
Challenging activities about water properties, conservation and pollution awareness

June 1 – August 30 • Bubble Technology - a Hands-On Science Exhibit Highly popular exhibit exploring soap and water bubbles. Includes giant bubble machines: the Bubble Wall (stretch a flat five-foot bubble!), the Hula Bula Bubble Machine (stand inside a bubble!) and Bubble science. Math and art include activities such as: measuring bubble domes, discovering how to penetrate a bubble without popping it, observing colors and patterns, predicting when bubbles pop, and testing various bubble-making tools.

July 13 and 20, 6:00 - 7:30 • Paper-making 1 and II
Children and adults will learn to recycle old papers into new uses in creative ways. Recipes included.

July 12, 26; Aug.9 and June 8, 22; July 6, 20 and Aug.3 • Cool Stuff – 
Museum Collections Tour
Adults and secondary students (limit 10 per session) Find out about the inner-workings of the Museum relating to its collections of masks, sculptures, paintings and fascinating rocks minerals and other science artifacts.

July 11, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 & July 27, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. • Water Bottle Rockets and the Rio Grande Physics will be introduced with the presentation of Newton's three laws of gravity and through rocketry design. Each student will build an Alka-Seltzer rocket and a two-liter bottle water rocket to launch at the end of the workshop. Bring own two-liter bottle.

Tuesday, July 25 • A Get Whale Smart Day
Led by Gayle Runnels and Kay Lay, authors, songwriters and illustrators of Amigo, The Friendly Gray Whale, the first in a series of Blubber Buddy Adventure children's books.

Elementary session - Scrimshaw carving • 9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Carving a whale tooth from soap bar and detailing with scrimshaw design, an old-fashioned art form of carving a picture on an ivory whale's tooth. Whaling ships, flags and people were carved in lines or dots and stained to highlight the design.

Junior High Session - Whale Sounds and Echo Locating
11:00 - 12:30 a.m.
Hear amazing “creaky door”" sounds of sperm whale and their “pings” like a submarine as well as the high-pitched EEE . . .eeee . . . EEE sounds of the dolphin. Do some hands-on activities about what whales hear and how they find their food through echoes.

Senior Session - In-depth Study of Killer Whales
1:30-3:00 p.m.
Learn social habits of one of most beloved and yet feared whales in the world. Learn how to identify individual whales through special physical markings and locate their pods. Find out about the interesting social behaviors of the killer whale families.