Press Releases

Chabot Space & Science Center Opens Lab Dash!

Oakland CA, November 15, 2012 - Chabot Space & Science Center will open Bill Nye's Climate Lab II: Lab Dash! to the public on Saturday, November 17 with new games and activities, new avatars and new ways to earn points. Opening Day visitors will be among the first to test the game LabDash! and submit inventions in the Green Machine Design Challenge.

Showcasing the new LabDash! game, the Center will hold an all-day "Dash to the Lab" starting at 10am, continuing throughout the day until 4pm. Dash to the Lab celebrates imagination and inventions as visitors don their Climate Agent lab coats and collect codes to unlock the Mission Briefcase and receive a prize, along with blueprints for additional activities and entry into a raffle.

The most participatory feature of the Lab is the Green Machine Design Challenge, which invites visitors to invent their own apparatuses designed to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Visitors of all ages can sketch their ideas at the Green Machine Invention Station and submit them for consideration by the Climate Lab Green Machine Design Team, which will select winning designs to display. A select number of drawings will be fabricated as 3D models by artisans and metal fabricators. These winning designs will be added to the exhibit in an ongoing rotating display over the lifetime of the exhibit. Visitors can also mail their drawings to the Center for consideration. High school student inventors, Jun Jie "Jack" Li, a sophomore at Oakland Tech High School, and sisters Katie and Cynthia Wu, from Fremont's American High School, will be on hand at the Saturday Opening from 1:15pm - 1:45pm to present their Green Machines along with the fabricators of their machines.

In 2011, Chabot Space & Science Center was awarded Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience for Bill Nye's Climate Lab, recognizing the extraordinary accomplishment in an exhibit. With major funding from The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Chabot has developed the next phase, Bill Nye's Climate Lab II: LabDash!, enhancing the innovative, hands-on exhibition that educates visitors about the science of climate change, cultivating positive, workable solutions to the challenge of energy production on the planet.

According to Alexander Zwisser, Chabot's Executive Director and CEO, "When it opened in 2010, Bill Nye's Climate Lab was quickly recognized by our community and by our peers in the science center and climate science fields as a groundbreaking exhibition focused on the planet's most urgent scientific challenge. This Climate Lab II will continue to engage visitors in extraordinary ways, and by including the Green Machine Design Challenge, we are finding even more intensive ways for visitors to participate in a clean energy and sustainable future."

Entrance to Bill Nye's Climate Lab II is included with general admission, adult $15.95, youth (ages 3 - 12) $11.95. Admission also includes tickets for the planetarium shows. Visitors are encouraged to purchase admission in advance at the box office (510) 336-7373 or online at www.chabotspace.org.

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Media Contact: Melissa Rosengard, (510) 336-7379 or MRosengard@ChabotSpace.org

Interview availability:

Saturday, November 17, 12:30pm - 2pm:
(Press Interviews may also be arranged in advance for Friday, November 16)

• Bill Nye�s Climate Lab Exhibits Team:
  Tamara Schwarz, Senior Experience Design Manager
  Rusty Lamar, Visitor Experience Exhibits Staff
  

Saturday, November 17, 1:15pm - 1:45pm:
Green Machine Design Challenge Inventors:

• Raindrop Eco Spider:
  Inventor Jun Jie "Jack" Li, a sophomore at Oakland Technical High School; Fabricator Ben Carpenter
• Smog Cloud Condenser:
  Inventors Katie Wu, junior and Cynthia Wu, senior, American High School, Fremont; Fabricator Todd Kundla.
  

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About Chabot Space & Science Center

Chabot Space & Science Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit interactive science center whose mission is to inspire and educate students of all ages about Planet Earth and the Universe. Located in the Oakland hills, the Center focuses on the earth, life, physical and astronomical sciences, with a 128-year legacy of serving Bay Area communities through exhibits, public programs, school field trips, science camps, teacher training, teen development programs and community outreach; hosts 50,000 students on school field trips and over 115,000 public visitors each year; and offers over 20,000 sq ft of interactive exhibits on a variety of space and science subjects, a world-class planetarium, school classes on over 30 different science topics, hands-on science activities, state-of-the-art classrooms and labs and publicly-available research-level telescopes.