Triangle Sci-Tech Expo at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences April 22

Triangle Sci-Tech Expo, at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, 11 West Jones Street, Raleigh, is part of North Carolina Science Festival, a month-long, state-wide celebration of science.

The Sci-Tech Expo takes place Saturday, April 22nd, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and is a free, family-friendly event.

Presentations

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The Dynamic Habitable Zone: Earth, Our Planetary Neighbors, and Worlds Beyond
2 p.m.
Dr. Rachel L. Smith, Head, Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Lab Curator, Meteorites, NC Museum of Natural Sciences and Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University, Department of Physics & Astronomy

Earth is currently the only planet in our solar system’s “habitable zone” — the region where liquid water (and therefore life as we know it) can be sustained on a planet’s surface. For this presentation, Dr. Smith will discuss what makes Earth habitable and the “extreme environments” that support life beyond our planet.

We will then journey to our closest planetary neighbors, Mars and Venus, both of which likely used to be habitable worlds, and on to the fascinating moons, Europa and Titan, and consider if they, too, could be harboring alien life. We will then venture beyond our solar system to a few exoplanetary systems with “Earth-like” planets, and a few more “weird and unusual” worlds.

Finally we will consider the existence of ET intelligence, and if life far more advanced than ours might ever connect with Earth and our species. This program will utilize fly-through-the-universe software called OpenSpace that uses real NASA mission data and cutting-edge visualization tools.

This presentation is recommended for ages 8 and older.

Exhibits and Activities

3D Printing and Bioprinting
UNC/NC State University Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
Bioprinting and 3D printing technologies that have potential use in healthcare will be exhibited during the event.

Animal Architects
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Did you know animals are also engineers and architects? Learn about some cool structures animals create and meet some of these “animal architects”!

Animals of Biotechnology
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Animals are used in many ways in the field of biotechnology. Come meet a few animals and learn how they are helping us to understand our world and help us solve problems!

Animals of the Arctic
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Come check out some amazing arctic specimens from our research collection! See the majesty of a narwhal tusk and feel small next to a polar bear mount! You will learn how these animals have adapted to a frozen world and how climate change is threatening their existence.

Charged Up Robots!
FIRST North Carolina
Watch really cool robots designed to play the 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition Charged Up! game. Take your turn driving and see if you can pick up the traffic cones. Can you place them on their pegs? How about the scoring cubes? Get energized with robotic fun!

Children’s STEM Books
PaperPie
Use water to “magically” paint a nature picture! We also have a variety of STEM books available from PaperPie (formerly Usborne Books & More).

Digital Imagery
Syngenta
Digital technology is used in multiple ways to help farmers be more productive. Come by and see how digital imagery can help farmers monitor the health of their crop from above or from their field at any time and from anywhere.

Exploring Monkey Blood and the Skin Microbiome
Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Learn more about research projects in the Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab exploring the microbes found on our skin and the evaluating the health of monkeys by looking at their blood.

Flight Competition Discovery Station
Mad Science of NC
Students will have a chance to design their own paper airplane or use one of the provided designs and our “Mad Science helper” if they need some guidance. After creating their aircraft, students will have a chance to fly – aiming for the longest distance traveled. Students can keep their builds.

Follow Our STE(A)M
The NC Science Trail
Demonstration: Carbon Snakes — exhibitors mix powdered sugar and baking soda with an accelerant and set it on fire to create a crazy carbon snake. Watch while you wait a few minutes as your cyanotypes take shape.

Future Builder
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
The Future Builder sustainability activity challenges visitors to build a tower representing a future community. Each card presents the players with a new part of their community to build—a school, park, gas station, museum, or something else—each with its own cost and reward. But players must balance their resources and construction carefully, meeting the needs of people, the planet, and the economy . . . or their community might be in for a crash!

Giant Slide
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Gravity in action! Climb up and zoom down this 21′ inflatable slide!

Girl Scouts Science Patch
Girl Scouts – North Carolina Coastal Pines
Science experiment building your own game.

Hope Is in Our Hands
Charles River Labs
We will have videos about what we do and hand out swag.

If Earth Were the Size of the Daily Planet
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at NC State University
The Museum’s outdoor scale model of Earth, the Daily Planet, is the largest satellite-image globe in the world. This exhibit shows what the height of mountains and the atmosphere, and the depth of the seas and tectonic plates would be on the Daily Planet. It will also show the comparative biomasses of all major life forms; for example: who weighs more- all of humanity or all the ants on earth? Come and find out the answer!

iNaturalist and City Nature Challenge 2023
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Learn how to participate in this year’s City Nature Challenge where cities like Raleigh and around the world compete to share the most nature observations in iNaturalist.

Incredible Science!
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Demonstrations in electromagnetism, buoyancy and inertia with hot air balloons, gravity-defying apples and more!

Make a Boat Engine From a Candle!
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Putt-putt boats are engineering in action! These little candle-powered crafts sputter and cough just like a real motorboat and it’s all thanks to the power of steam.

May The Acoustic Radiation Force Be With You
Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, UNC & NC State University
While we can’t hear ultrasound, or sound at frequencies above our hearing range, did you know that we can use it to do amazing things like levitating light objects in the air! Come see if the acoustic radiation force is with you with fun and hands-on demonstrations of what happens when you pit the forces of gravity and ultrasound against each other! Navigate your way though an aerial obstacle course, try to build the tallest tower, or make particles waltz in a perfectly choreographed dance, all with sound!

My Community
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
In My Community, Museum visitors can draw their neighborhoods and talk about what they like best or least about the places they live. They can check out the Changing Communities, and think of ways these spaces could be improved to help people, the planet and the economy. Then, visitors can imagine how these solutions and others could be applied to their own neighborhoods, and change their drawings to make their neighborhoods better today and in the future.

NC Green Power
NC Green Power is a nonprofit whose mission is improving our state’s environment by supporting renewable energy, carbon offset projects and providing grants for solar installations at K-12 schools. Since 2003, their program has helped support more than 1,000 projects right here in North Carolina. Come see their table for a solar activity and learn about their Solar+ Schools program.

Pack a Space Telescope
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Space telescopes can offer us better, clearer views of the universe (and of our own planet) than Earth-based telescopes can, but getting these large, delicate pieces of equipment into orbit is tricky. In “Exploring the Universe: Pack a Space Telescope,” participants get a taste of the challenges faced by engineers in designing and building complicated tools that can fold up to fit inside a spacecraft and then unfold again when they deploy in orbit. Participants will design, build, pack and deploy their own model space telescopes in this activity.

Plant Cells Live!
NC State University
Plants perceive and respond to the environment around them at the level of tissues and cells. Come see some cells under the microscope that help plants survive when they are thirsty.

Plants4Kids
NC State University
Plants provide us with food, clothes, medicines, clean air and building materials. This NC State research group studies how plants grow and develop. Come learn about plants and sow some seeds to take home with you!

Powering into the Future with POWERPLAYsm
ECG Robotics
Come see and drive award winning robots from the 2022-2023 First Tech Challenge POWERPLAYsm season, along with interactive activities including building robot parts and the applications of these robots in keeping our planet clean!

Science of Dogs
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
How well do you know your pupper pal? Come test your sniffer against “man’s best friend” and see the effects of how selective breeding of traits created all of the breeds that we know and love today.

Stomp Rockets
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Learn how some rockets carry science tools — not scientists — into space, and how a special kind of rocket called a “sounding rocket” can be used for quick, low-flying scientific missions into space. Participants will build and launch their own air rockets to help imagine the challenges and triumphs of engineering spacecraft and launching them into a specific region of the space above our planet.

Techno Wolves
Visit Icarus and Daedalus, robots built by high school students, as they demonstrate game-play attributes (such as shooting oversized tennis balls) from this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition game Rapid React.

To Float or Not to Float
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
In a process called photosynthesis, plants convert light energy, water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar. In addition to providing food for plants to grow, photosynthesis is also responsible for replenishing Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen that we breathe. Thus, it is not only crucial for plants, but also for organisms that rely on oxygen for their survival. The “Float or Not to Float” procedure provides an easy way to measure the rate of photosynthesis, and students can use this procedure to investigate which factors affect the rate of photosynthesis.

Wetlands — Nature’s Sponges, Healthy Stream Life & Mammals of NC
US Army Corps of Engineers
Wetlands are Mother Nature’s sponges. Wetlands serve in removing sediment and pollution from runoff, thereby reducing pollutants to waters downstream. This exhibit utilizes a model to demonstrate wetlands’ ability to remove sediment, harmful chemicals and other pollutants. You will also see the many creatures that live in a healthy stream system and become familiar with the mammals of North Carolina.

Which Key to Unlock?
Gilead Sciences
Experiment 1: Learning Locks — demonstrates the drug discovery process and/or precision medicine.
Experiment 2: Process Controls — how having a guide or mold helps consistency across products.

 

More Events

Check out our list of free and cheap events in Raleigh and the rest of the Triangle this weekend, or our full event calendar in the Triangle, or just look at few upcoming events here: