Letter from the CEO
Yes it’s true. Spring has well and truly sprung. The hills are green, wildflowers are blooming
along the roadsides, and there’s a wonderful clean freshness to the air up here
in the hills. You know, it’s sometimes hard to believe that Chabot is only an easy 3 mile drive off the
freeway. Once you’re up here, you
feel like you’re in another world.
If you haven’t been up to Chabot recently, this is a great time of the year for a visit. With miles of hiking and biking trails in the redwoods all around our building, you can make a really fun and inexpensive day out for the family. Start the day with a visit to our Center, taking in all the wonderful exhibits, shows and activities we have on offer, and finish up with a hike, bike-ride or picnic in the woods. Now that’s an experience that dollar for dollar is hard to beat.
And over the next couple of months, there are also three very special
astronomical events happening that you won’t want to miss –namely, a
solar eclipse (May 20), a lunar eclipse (June 4), and the once-in-a-lifetime
Transit of Venus (June 5). We’ll be spotlighting this Astronomical Trifecta with
special projects, demonstrations, and experts on hand to help you enjoy the
experience so make sure to book your place on the viewing deck for these extraordinary events.
While we’re focusing on astronomy, if you haven’t yet seen our new live planetarium show, Cosmos 360, make a date to see it soon. You’ll be transported, I promise….several billion light years away, in fact!
For Sun worshippers we will be hosting a temporary exhibit Sun as Art, May 26th -Sept 3rd. This exhibit celebrates the intersection of science and art with spectacular images of the Sun. Enjoy the exhibit then come out on deck any nice day and our volunteers will introduce you to the sun as you’ve never seen it.
Meanwhile, back on earth, classes are filling fast for the Chabot Space & Summer Camp, which offers the ultimate camp experience for all 3rd through 7th grade aspiring scientists, engineers, inventors and space explorers. So if you’re still undecided what to do with the kids this summer, check out the classes on offer and book them in for a summer camp experience that is educational, inspirational and most importantly - enormous FUN.
This year we’ve partnered with Galileo Learning to host our summer camps, which means our own Chabot staff are now free to help program a whole slew of activities and workshops in the Center. Our summer calendar is fairly bursting with family workshops, hikes, spectacular demos and activities for all ages, including the ever popular bottle rockets …and, so I’ve been told, a new CO2 launcher! And in July and August our Summer Sci Fi movie nights return. Make it your new date night with dinner at the Skyline Bistro after the show.
Outside of the Center, Chabot is partnering with organizations both at home and abroad on climate change and environmental education. In collaboration with UC Berkeley, Chabot staff are working with students from nearby Skyline High School on a carbon dioxide monitoring system using a greenhouse gas emissions sensor developed by Professor Ron Cohen at UCB. The students are being taught how to analyze and interpret data on temperature, humidity, and carbon gases collected in the sensor located at their school.
We are also thrilled to have been chosen to participate in ScenaRios , a project sponsored by UNESCO, FIOCRUZ, and ASTC, which brings together students from all over the world to collaborate on developing web based tools and other resources to address some of the world’s most challenging environmental issues. Chabot’s Galaxy Explorers have been teamed with students from the Experimentarium in Copenhagen and the Canada Science and Technology Center, in Ottawa, collaborating to produce a video on alternative energies and the green economy. The video was shown at the recent Planet under Pressure conference in London, which I happened to attend, and will also be submitted for presentation at the 6th Science Center World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa in early September. I am so very happy that the future of our planet is in the hands of kids like these!
Well, that about wraps it up for this letter. As usual I’ve only touched on a fraction of what’s going on at Chabot this spring and early summer so do please visit our website to find out more about our current program of events and activities. There’s so much happening this summer I can’t keep up with it!
Hope to see you up in the hills soon!
Best wishes,
Alexander Zwissler
Executive Director/CEO