Discovery Day – North Bay at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa is a major highlight of the week-long festival. Festival activities will be free. Families are encouraged to attend together. “Unleash your inner scientist” at this celebration of the Bay Area’s unparalleled leadership in science and technology. Please share the flyer with your family and friends.
Last Fall 2011, over 4,000 people attended the first Discovery Day at Infineon Raceway. Highlights there included liquid nitrogen ice cream, an emergency room patient robot, LEGO® engineering, strawberry DNA extraction, airplane and catapult launches, marble machines, and elephant toothpaste. In addition to Discovery Day, over 20 events took place in the North Bay, including Insecta-Palooza, Star Parties, hawk bandings, and hikes. You can expect a similar event this year.
Details
Saturday, October 27
11 AM – 4 PM
Sonoma County Fairgrounds
1350 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa, CA
Rain or Shine!
Organized by:
North Bay Discovery Day Committee &
Exhibits
Catapult Competition
Agilent Technologies
Student participants in Agilent’s STEM outreach programs will demonstrate their kit builds.
Liquid N2 Ice Cream
Buck Institute for Age Research
Stop by and enjoy liquid nitrogen ice cream. Examine worms and stem cells with microscopes.
Strawberry DNA Extraction
BABEC/PROBE
Extract DNA from frozen strawberries, and spin and spool the DNA for a closer look at the stuff of life.
Pipet Art
BABEC/PROBE
Make a “stained-glass” picture using number and color codes.
Electronimoes Round Atom Playing Cards
Brush with Science
Think electrons and dominoes, and you have Electronimoes! The basics of atoms and bonding are explored through seven fun games and activities with these cleverly designed cards.
The Bubble Man
The Bubble Man
Watch Larry Lack, retired educator, blow giant soap bubbles. Learn what soap is, how it kills germs, how it makes bubbles, and why the bubbles are colored.
High Flying Rocket Balloons
Children’s Museum of Sonoma County
Blow up rocket balloons and launch them!
Marvelous Molecules of Milk
Clover Stornetta Farms
Observe different fat percentages in milk and physical changes as cream churns into butter. Eat some samples and learn about the chemical and nutritional components of mammalian lactation.
Diet Soda and Mentos Candy Reaction Show
Donald and Sutter Laird
Watch what happens when diet soda and Mentos react!
Wild Cat Conservation and Research – Bay Area Puma Project
Felidae Conservation Fund
Learn about wild cat research equipment (including remote/trail cameras, GPS collars, and telemetry), tracking information, and the ecology and characteristics of the Bay Area’s felids.
Science of Light
JDSU
Examples and demonstrations of JDSU products enhancing and using the properties of light in the visual and infrared spectrums.
Save Mr. Sim
Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, San Rafael
Simulated emergency room with MD and staff. Kids get to be “interns.”
Healthy Nutrition Game
Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, San Rafael
Spin the wheel and learn about nutrition.
Ultrasound Your Goldfish
Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health
Watch as an ultrasound reveals the anatomy of a goldfish as he swims in his aquarium. Learn about ultrasound, sonar and Doppler effect.
Fly High
Lawrence Hall of Science and Inventor’s Lab, Vallejo
Create your own flying machine and test it in the wind tube.
Marble Machines
Lawrence Hall of Science and Inventor’s Lab, Vallejo
Ramps, lifts, tubes, jumps! Design your own system of getting from Point A to Point B, and following some really cool paths in between.
Energy
Marin Clean Energy
Learn about energy consumption, efficiencies, and sources.
Trees of the California Forest
Marin Master Gardeners
Learn to identify the principal trees of California forests, as well as Marin County. Make a specimen book to take home.
Soft Circuits
Marin ROP Media Center
Get hands-on with soft circuits! Create your own wearable electronics, stitching circuits with conductive thread and blending together traditional crafting with LEDs.
Marine Mammal Science
Marine Mammal Center
Age sea lions based on their teeth. Use a microscope to examine scat and fish parts.
Curious About Mars?
NASA – Ames Office of Education
The Mars Rover Curiosity landed on the Martian surface on August 5th, 2012, successfully accomplishing one of the most complicated entry, descent and landing sequences in NASA history! Come find out more about the Rover and its new home with a full-sized Mars Rover Curiosity photo-op, a topographic Mars globe, real equipment used on the Rover, and more!
F-4 Cockpit Simulator
Pacific Coast Air Museum
Sit in a real F-4 Phantom Cockpit Simulator and interact with the controls and displays. This is a real simulator that was used to train Naval Aviators.
Where Ever You Go, There You Are! GeoSpatial Science, Breadcrumbs, and GPS!
Piner High School
Learn about GPS and GIS and how it already affects your everyday life through smart phones, Google Earth, mapping services, and simply getting up in the morning! Use a hand held Trimble GPS computer to track movements in real time, leaving “breadcrumbs” behind
Solar Spotting
Robert Ferguson Observatory
Observe indirect teloscopy of the sun.
Birds, Bugs and Bones
Safari West Wildlife Foundation
Stop by and hear about some of the fabulous things Jr. Keepers do at Safari West.
Robotics Club
San Marin High School
See what a high school robotics club has designed, built, and programmed to compete in science, technology and engineering events.
The Human Body and the Nature of Nature
Santa Rosa Junior College
Examine structure and function using microscopes. See how tooth patterns correlate with food preferences. Examine human organs and learn how to identify pathological conditions.
Fun with Physics!
Santa Rosa Junior College – Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Club
Hands on physics demonstrations and activities with the SRJC WISE club members!
Chemistry Magic
Santa Rosa Junior College - Chemistry Club
Various chemistry demonstrations including exploring ferrofluids!
Rediscovering Solar Energy
Solar Schoolhouse
Experience the power of sunshine through solar etching, assembling a solar fountain, and baking a clay medallion in a solar oven.
Digital and Internet Radio
Sonoma County Radio Amateurs
Learn about digital and internet radio, as well as voice and Morse code.
Russian River Salmon
Sonoma County Water Agency
Play a game to learn what hazards salmon need to overcome to survive. Make salmon fish rubbings (gyotaku) to take home.
Meet the Engineers Who Are Building Your Train!
Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART)
See various stages of design and building of the new North Bay commuter rail project. SMART engineers will discuss how and why they chose their careers, as well as what they do as engineers on the SMART project.
Walk Through the Watershed
Sonoma State University
Use microscopes to view the insects, aquatic invertebrates, and flowers found at Copeland Creek. Learn about food webs, biodiversity, pollinators, and garden allies.
Build Your Own Pulsar!
Sonoma State University – NASA Education and Public Outreach
Do you know why neutron stars pulse? Build a model of a pulsar from a battery, LEDs and modeling material
Learn to Build a Phone App
Technovation Challenge
Build paper prototypes of phone apps and learn about coding and user design.
Tidepool Explorations
UC Davis – Bodega Marine Laboratory
Observe and touch tidepool organisms such as starfish, sea urchins, hermit crabs, and kelp. Overfishing, pollution, and climate change can impact tidepool residents. Learn what you can do to protect our coastal ocean habitats.
Who Inhabited the Earth?
UC Museum of Paleontology
Go back in time and explore the history of much earlier inhabitants of the Bay Area. Join UCMP scientists in observing fossil evidence, both large and small, of life of the past.
