Grades 3-6 - PREMIUM WORKSHOP

What are our responsibilities as scientists and creators? How do changing ecosystems affect the survival of living organisms? Discovering the concept of chimeras, students will do some big thinking and look for answers for big questions while having fun with unique toy animal chimeras. They will solve survival and habitat requirements for their own, unique newly created frankencreature and create a mini habitat to take home.

Grades 2-4 - PREMIUM WORKSHOP

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What do robots do? How do they work? What are our responsibilities as inventors?  This workshop encourages children to explore the possibilities and limitations of robots and A.I. We study different applications and uses for robots and each child will get to design and put together their own doodle bots with fun, simple materials.
(This workshop is also available as a Pre-K-1 workshop with a non-motorized box robot making activity.)

Grades K-8

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Science is everywhere, even in lemonade! Children will explore fundamental chemical principles and investigate the mysterious changes that occur when following exact recipes to combine different tasty chemical substances, and, pending on seasonal availability, extracts from wild Maine plants. The science of acids and bases, ph indicators, solutions, and suspensions come together in one of the fundamental ways children can dabble in entrepreneurship and scientific inventions.

Grades 1-6  

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Exploring Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion, children will experience the principles of practical rocketry, propulsion, acceleration, friction, trial and error, and the challenges of the creative process from concept to working model. Using what they learned, each student will experiment and find a perfect mix of “rocket fuel” to blast off a tiny-sounding rocket.

Grades K-3

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Are dragons real? Children will compare and contrast what they know from the world of imagination and science. Exploring specimens that look like they have come from some fearsome, fantastic beasts, children will form theories about what started the stories of dragon lore. Then children will make friends with a real life dragon and observe and examine him to discover if he could do the things storybook dragons are famous for. This program ends with a fantastic dragon craft to make and take home.

Grades K-8- PREMIUM WORKSHOP

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Explore the difference between biomes, habitats, ecosystems, and more and how animals are adapted to survive in their special places on our planet. Children will engage with big science concepts by learning about specific insects and their habitats and ecology, and observe live insects. Each child will use what they learned by building a mini habitat for a pet cricket to take home.

Grades K-8

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Slime is serious science…and fun! Children will explore the concepts of molecules, self-assembly, polymers, and the amazing properties and uses of slime in nature. We’ll find out how scientists extract edible slime from one of Maine’s sea organisms and will make a big batch of stringy, stretchy sea slime.

Grades 2-8

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Hydrogels in action: children examine and explore the concepts of absorbance and retention with different materials and extract hydrogel powder from diapers. Consumer science and fundamental science concepts like cohesion and adhesion and the phases of matter come together in a lab loaded with fun!

Grades K-8

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Reptiles and amphibians are an important part of ecosystems all over the world and are indicator and keystone animals to help scientists study the impacts of climate change. Children will explore adaptation, habitats, behavior, defenses, threats, and conservation efforts by getting up close and personal with three distinctly different species of live reptilians.

Grades K-8

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Join us for a live animal presentation of one of MDM’s resident rescues. Often misunderstood but ecologically important creatures can be observed up close and some even handled. This is a slightly shorter program (30 min) and well suited for younger children.  

Grades K-6- PREMIUM WORKSHOP

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How do paleontologists solve the puzzle of fossil finds? In this program children will use tools and clues that scientists use to understand Earth’s prehistoric past. Through examining real fossils and top grade replicas, comparing them to living organisms, and learning about what Maine was like 20000 or 200 million years ago, children will gain a better understanding of the world of the dinosaurs and the concept of extinction and fossilization. This program includes a mini fossil dig where students can become field paleontologists and excavate fossilized shark teeth and other treasures.

Grades 1-8

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While mixing and making their own perfumes and potions with Maine wildflowers, non-native plants and basic household chemicals students will explore olfactory perception, the sometimes weird, sometimes hilarious history of human hygiene and the principle of molecules and diffusion.

Grades 1-6

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Children will explore the changing phases of matter with dry ice and regular ice. Through fun demonstrations and simple experiments, they will observe sublimations, compression and rapid expansion of gasses, and changes under different conditions. Seasonally limited availability.

Grades K-6

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With the help of the Museum’s preserved specimen we’ll take a closer look at the ecology and lives of warm blooded vertebrae like big cats, antelopes and deer, rodents, and primates: how are they adapted to their habitat? What food do they eat? What threats do they face for survival and how does climate change drive habitat loss and species decline? Each student will make their own mini field guide with descriptions and pictures of the featured animals.
This program can be adapted to have a Maine specific focus.