Educator Program Search
Welcome to our Educator Program Search! This tool is designed to help you find the RMSC experience that best fits your needs. To begin, select your desired grade level, subject, program location, program type and/or day of the week from the dropdown menus below. Click the program title that interests you to learn more. As always, we're here to help at 585.697.1942.
New! Search "Limited Time Exhibition" to find our new program featuring SoundSense.
AdventureZone
Permanent Exhibition
Students explore the forces that have shaped Rochester in this exhibit that engages the mind and body. Students will be able to: pilot a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) underwater, see stratigraphy as they climb across the Genesee River Gorge climbing wall, take a simulated voyage in Lake Ontario, feel ...
Discover Our Weather
Permanent Exhibition
Where do clouds come from? What is a "low pressure" system, and why does it sometimes mean a rainy day? What causes lightning? Experiment with the forces behind our changeable weather. Create a forecast to present on camera in the Weather Studio.
Energy Trail
Permanent Exhibition
Discover experiences spread throughout the museum where energy sources, forms and transformations, are presented in fully interactive settings that engage the whole body so that students can truly feel the energy required to power their world and understand the choices they can make to impact the future.
Expedition Earth
Permanent Exhibition
Travel back into deep time! Discover how earthquakes and volcanoes have helped change the land and seas, resulting in adaptation or extinction. Move forward to a mere 10,000 years ago when an immense ice sheet covered Rochester, and learn how a paleontologist uses fossil evidence to reconstruct the giants of ...
Green Infrastructure Showcase
Permanent Exhibition
Green infrastructure is a cost-effective, sustainable approach to reducing stormwater runoff pollution while delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits. Explore the science and positive impacts of Green Infrastructure practices being used by the RMSC, including:
- Rain gardens and/or bioretention areas
- ...
Nano
Permanent Exhibition
Imagine and discover a world you can't see! Hands-on components present the basics of nanoscience and engineering, introduce some real-world applications, and explore the societal and ethical implications of this new technology.
Please note that this is a longterm but temporary exhibit, so it may ...
How Things Work
Permanent Exhibition
Explore the mechanisms behind everyday objects and machines. Concepts include simple and complex machines, sound, electricity and magnetism.
Please note that the location of this exhibit varies. When making your reservation, please confirm with an RMSC team member that it is currently available to view.
Illumination: The World of Light & Optics
Permanent Exhibition
Engage with more than 15 interactive stations that demonstrate exciting scientific concepts from reflection and refraction to radio waves to color temperature. Crank, spin, and illuminate to make light bend, sound emanate, and shadows dance.
Under Construction: Building Careers
Permanent Exhibition
This exhibit showcases the green technology used in the Sustainability Institute Hall (home of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability) building at RIT– from start to finish. It also highlights the careers necessary to complete the project from start to finish.
KEVAPlanks
Permanent Exhibition
Exercise student's mathematical and creative-thinking muscles as they engineer structures of their own design using thousands of these amazingly balanced wooden KEVA planks.
Stories in Stone
Guided Museum Experiences
Docent Guided Tour
Get hands on with rocks, minerals and fossil and discover the Earth Systems that shaped our local geology. From earthquakes to erosion, weathering, deposition and tectonic plate movements, get up close and hands-on with the how the ground beneath our feet ...
Animal Adaptations
Guided Museum Experiences
Docent-Led Exhibit Workshop
Beavers, bears and birds, oh my! Structure follows function as students explore the adaptations that abound in the animal kingdom! Learn what adaptations are, the difference between physical and behavioral adaptations and how they help all kinds of animals survive, and thrive, ...
Electricity & Magnetism
Guided Museum Experiences
Docent-Led Exhibit Workshop
Discover the principles of electricity and magnetism to explore how those principles are at work in machines we use every day! Specific emphasis is put on the invisible force field we call magnetism and its relationship with electricity and how they ...
Erie Canal Simple Machine Challenge
Guided Museum Experiences
Inventor Center
Simple Machines to the rescue! It's time to clear the path to make way for the Erie Canal, but we need your team to build a “stump puller.” Combine levers, pulleys, gears and more to create an engineering marvel capable of extracting stumps ...
Lift It, Launch It, Let it Go: Seige Machine
Guided Museum Experiences
Inventor Center
Experiment with different projectiles, arm lengths and other variables to build and launch with a seige machine. Catapults and Trebuchets will breach a castle. Don't let the force of gravity keep you down! Each team invention will test potential and kinetic energy. <...
Freshwater Around the World
Guided Museum Experiences
Science On a Sphere
Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Observe the hydrologic cyle in action on our 5 ft. interactive globe. Students will make water resource management decisions by analyzing scientific data on freshwater sources including the atmosphere, &...
Predicting Weather
Guided Museum Experiences
Science On a Sphere
Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Discover the complex interactions and movement of air masses on our 5 ft. interactive globe. Students will collect real-time data on temperature, clouds, pressure, precipitation, and wind to make a ...
Plates in Motion
Guided Museum Experiences
Science On a Sphere
Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Examine earthquakes, volcanoes and seafloor structures to evaluate the theory of past plate motions.
Extend the Experience
Add to your students' experience ...
Live Science: Liquid Nitrogen—Solids, Liquids & Gases
Guided Museum Experiences
Live Presentation
Our coolest demonstrations, literally! This program explores temperature's effect on solids, liquids and gasses using liquid nitrogen .
Live Science: Pressure
Guided Museum Experiences
Live Presentation
The formula "Force over Area" is brought to life with this program about the pressure all around us and what happens when it's not.
Live Science: Hydrogen
Guided Museum Experiences
Live Presentation
An exciting range of demonstrations displays many of the properties of Hydrogen, the number one most common element in the universe.
Live Science: Electricity Theater
Guided Museum Experiences
Live Presentation
Two six foot tall Tesla Coils throwing 8 foot arcs of plasma (lightning) and the arcs actually play music. Our Faraday Cage can make the day of many in attendance electrifying!
Inquiry Room Exploration
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Explore science in a less structured setting as you learn and play in the unique Carlson Inquiry Room. Meet our live animals and investigate magnetism. Learn about states of matter as you experiment with vinegar and baking soda and make your own slime ...
Discovering Weather
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Investigate the connections between weather and water processes on earth. Become a water molecule and travel through the water cycle and make a water-cycle bracelet to take home. Learn about severe weather around the world.
Insect Investigations
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Explore the wonder of butterfly metamorphosis. Learn how insects communicate and meet the live critters that make their home in the RMSC Carlson Inquiry Room.
Magnet Exploration
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Learn about magnetic fields and experiment with materials that are magnetic. Explore attraction and repulsion. Make magnets float.
Rocks Fossils and More
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Explore fossils from the RMSC teaching collection. Sort rocks into three groups and learn about the minerals that make up rocks.
Simple Machines & Fantastic Forces
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Explore simple machines while experimenting with pulley systems and ramps. Learn about friction, gravity and inertia while investigating the forces of motion.
Solids, Liquids, Gases
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Explore the states of matter by comparing and contrasting solids, liquids and gases. Do hands-on experiments about liquid density and chemical reaction. Learn about polymers and make slime to take home.
Frog Adaptations
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Discover the ingenious adaptations of live frogs and why they’re important. Explore physical and behavioral adaptations that make it possible for frogs to live in tropical forests, frozen tundras and scorching deserts. Get a first-hand look at live frogs while learning about ...
School Overnight
Special Program
Give your class an experience they’ll never forget, a night at the museum!
Enjoy a unique opportunity to engage in hands-on activities, visit the planetarium, see our singing Tesla Coils in the Electricity Theater, be amazed with a Live Science Presentation, and of course have the ...
Challenger Learning Center
Special Program
The Challenger Learning Center of Greater Rochester is a high-tech, hands-on facility for space flight simulations located at Strasenburgh Planetarium. Coordinated by "Mission Commanders" from Monroe #1 BOCES, this unique experience is educational and fun.
Learn more about the experience on the Challenger Learning Center of Greater Rochester&...
Holiday Laser
Planetarium Shows
A special holiday treat bringing you a wide variety of music via the Star Theater's fine sound system, choreographed with colorful and dramatic laser light. The music selections come from the festive, public side of the holiday season. Length about 50 minutes. Especially appropriate for younger children.
Sun, Moon and Stars
Planetarium Shows
Observe the sun's daily path across the sky and predict sunset. Look at simple sketches of key constellations, then find and point to them in the sky (inferring). Classify bright and faint stars; note shapes of prominent constellations; count their brightest stars. Discover how planets change positions from year ...
Our Changing Seasons
Planetarium Shows
Travel through the beautiful cycle of seasons in western New York, reviewing the months of the year (ordering and sequencing). Use both sight and hearing to observe changes in weather and environment. Compare and contrast how plants, animals and people respond (identifying variables). Measure the height of the midday ...
Cycles in the Sky
Planetarium Shows
Rotation and revolution, day and night, seasons, and moon phases demonstrated in age-appropriate fashion. Review the concept of cycles and generalize it to the cycles of the day, year and lunar month, all caused by rotation and revolution. Compare and contrast the sun's paths in the skies of summer, ...
Seasons, Phases and Eclipses
Planetarium Shows
Rotation and revolution, day and night, seasons, and moon phases demonstrated in age-appropriate fashion. At a level appropriate for upper elementary and middle school-age students, this program demonstrates the changing appearances of the sun, moon and stars, with extra information on eclipses. Additional computer graphics briefly show how the ...
Celestial Sphere
Planetarium Shows
Rotation and revolution, day and night, seasons and moon cycles, demonstrated in age-appropriate fashion. This live lecture-demonstration in the Strasenburgh Planetarium Star Theater aims to help students prepare for the Regents Earth Science exam. The hemispherical dome of the Theater serves as an accurate model of the celestial sphere. ...
Face of Earth
Planetarium Shows
Students see carefully selected full-resolution photographs of Earth's hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere, plus signs of climate change, life processes and human impact. The images are arranged in a montage with music, giving the feeling of flying in space over our planet.
...
Gravity and Energy in the Universe
Planetarium Shows
A sequence of carefully selected video clips, animations and still images from space flights show the behaviors of objects and people with and without weight. Computer graphics show how the Sun's gravity controls motions in our solar system. Hubble Space Telescope imagery takes us among the stars, bound by ...
Solar System Science
Planetarium Shows
Surrounded by the best images from recent space missions such as the New Horizons Pluto flyby projected at giant scale, students encounter the majesty, mystery and wonder of our solar system. In keeping with today's scientific perspective, moons, asteroids and comets are given the same level of importance as ...
Self Guided Nature Walk
Self-Guided Cumming Nature Center
Self-Guided Nature Walks include:
- The Beaver Trail introduces you to the important cycles of nature. You will see forest, stream, marsh, and meadow habitats rich with plant and animal life on your way to an observation tower overlooking a 35-acre beaver pond. See first-hand one of ...
Ecological Communities
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
Compare field, forest and pond communities to gain insight into habitat, succession, food webs, and population dynamics
Water Monitors
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
This field study examines the features of clean water. Students will collect usable data on a Cumming Nature Center creek by collecting benthic macroinverebrates, performing chemical tests, measuring physical characteristics of one of the healthiest creeks in the region.
Sensing Nature
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
Discover the beauty and complexity of the natural world through activities that engage all the senses.
Field Journal Journey
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
Explore the complexity and biodiversity of the natural world through observation and data collection using field journals.
Focus on Native Frogs
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
This is a fun and dirty adventure that explores the amazing adaptations, lifecycle, and habit of the native frogs in our region.
Falling Leaves
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
Fall Season Only. Explore why trees lose their leaves in the autumn and how animals prepare for winter.
Winter Ecology
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
January through February, examine how plants and animals adapt to winter. Hunt for tracks and other evidence of animal activity.
Maple Sugaring
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
From the Haudenosaunee to the American pioneers, and on to modern day methods, the time-honored tradition of making maple syrup blends both history and ecology.
Every spring for the last 39 years, the RMSC's Cumming Nature Center in Naples, NY, explores this timeless craft. ...
Introduction to Natural Communities
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
Explore the woods to discover how all living things are connected through food chains and the relationships between consumers, producers and decomposers.
RMSC DELIVERS: Light & Color
Experiences at Your Site
Explore how and why we see colors in this fun, interactive show. Experiment with color mixing and learn about the different kinds of primary colors .
Maximum attendance for PreK: 30
Maximum attendance for grades 1-12: Any
RMSC DELIVERS: Polymers
Experiences at Your Site
Explore the amazing world of Polymer Chemistry in this hands-on program. . Your students will perform experiments to make different kinds of polymers like slime, Styrofoam, and extract DNA from a banana.
RMSC DELIVERS: Rocks and Minerals
Experiences at Your Site
This outreach gives the student a hands on understanding of geology. Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks are explored Through experimentation along with the observation of color, streak, luster, and the use of the Mohs hardness scale students are able to identify a variety of minerals
RMSC DELIVERS: Bats
Experiences at Your Site
This fun and interactive program will help your students to understand bats, and the important part they play in our ecosystem. With role-playing, hands-on objects, and demonstrations your class will show how a bat finds it’s way around, what different bats eat, and help to dispel some of ...
RMSC DELIVERS: Dinosaurs
Experiences at Your Site
This very interactive program expands the students’ imagination as they learn about and “create” a fossil. Students become “paleontologists” in a mock “dig”, and then role play as dinosaurs to explore how they move, eat, and defend themselves.
RMSC DELIVERS: Insects
Experiences at Your Site
This fun, interactive program will get your class buzzing about insects. Students will take on the role of dragonflies, bees, crickets, and other insects, as they learn about insect anatomy, eating habits, and how they communicate.
RMSC DELIVERS: Pressure & Force
Experiences at Your Site
With this outreach students will be introduced to Pressure = Force /Area. Through demonstrations students will observe how pressure or the lack there of effects everything around us. From vacuums to a bed of nails participants will find out why a little pressure isn't a bad thing.
RMSC DELIVERS: Solids, Liquids and Gases
Experiences at Your Site
This is our coolest outreach yet. Really, it is! Your class will thrill at the use of Liquid Nitrogen (-196° C), as they learn how temperature effects energy and changes matter from solid to liquid to gas. Watch your students’ amazement turn to understanding as they begin to explore ...
RMSC DELIVERS: What is an Experiment?
Experiences at Your Site
This outreach is a wonderful introduction to the scientific process for the younger students, and a great exercise to get the older students thinking out of the box. Through a mix of hands-on experiments and interactive demonstrations, this chemistry program entices students to ask questions, make observations, develop theories, ...
RMSC DELIVERS: Electricity
Experiences at Your Site
Some say this demonstration is shocking, but we say simply, “Students are sure to get a charge out of it.” Your class will be electrified with hands-on experiments and demonstrations that help to explain atoms, and the role they play in electric currents.
RMSC DELIVERS: Energy
Experiences at Your Site
Driving a car, riding a bike, heating your house, and even sitting still, we use energy. Light, electricity, heat, even sound are all energies. The question is: “What is energy?” Demonstrators guide students in exploring these different forms of energy, how they connect, and how they are used.
Sky Preview: stars, planets, eclipse
Homeschool Program
Stars, planets and light
Homeschool Program
Forest School Homeschool CNC Courses
Homeschool Program
Vehicle Transportation Challenge
Guided Museum Experiences
Inventor Center
Experiment with aerodynamics and friction has you design and build a vehicle that can climb up and over a hill. Wheels will help you get there, but only with your inventive engineering design.
Mission: Mystery Planet
Guided Museum Experiences
Science On a Sphere
Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization.
Students will examine the topography of a “mystery planet” to develop a future mission. Observe the solar system to scale.
Animal Defense
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
This adventure explores the unique defense mechanisms that our local animals use to protect and defend themselves.
Science in the Wild
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
CFD is an outdoor education primer on local ecology, history, art, and craft. This community program also provides a look at career choices in the Finger Lakes and the important role students can play in preserves our region’s natural resources.
Special School Experience: Forest School
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center
The Spice of Life
Guided Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Create and decode a “DNA recipe” to learn how variations in DNA lead to the inheritance of different traits. Decide what is on the menu at the “Bio Bistro” to discover how humans have an influence on desired traits.
SoundSense
Limited Time Exhibition
Sounds are a part of our everyday lives and help us to make sense of the world around us. Experience how sound comes from vibrations – waves of energy that push tiny molecules against one another in pulses. Explore the nature of sound and how we hear, the science and ...
Global Soundscapes: Mission to Record the Earth
Guided Museum Experiences
Immerse yourself in the amazing sounds of our planet! Through awe-inspiring screen images, surround sound, and live presentation, Global Soundscapes takes you on an ear-opening journey into the science of sound and the emerging field of soundscape ecology. Embark on a mission to investigate the dramatic soundscapes ...
Journey of Sound
Guided Museum Experiences
Students will see, hear and feel sound as they are first led through specific SoundSense exhibits. Explore how sound travels with a giant slinky. Add sound effects to a silent movie. Experiment with a musical scale. Students will then be led to a classroom for further investigation ...