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.
Download the 2019 School & Teacher Program Guide
AdventureZone
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Students explore the forces that have shaped Rochester in this exhibit that engages the mind and body.
Discover Our Weather
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | 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.
Erie Canal Lock
Permanent Exhibition
Operate gates and valves to raise or lower the water level as you pilot a model tugboat through a series of locks as students learn the engineering and history behind how the Erie Canal helped fuel the economic growth of the nation.
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.
Green Infrastructure Showcase
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Green infrastructure is a cost-effective, sustainable approach to reducing stormwater runoff pollution while delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits.
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 ...
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.
- 1st Grade
- Waves: ...
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.
- Kindergarten
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.
- Kindergarten
- Engineering and Design: ETS1.B
- 1st Grade
Flight to Freedom: Rochester’s Underground Railroad
Permanent Exhibition
Immerse yourselves in re-created environments, first-person accounts, and hands-on experiences of the period leading up to the Civil War. Discover how Rochesterians fought against slavery using primary documents.
- Pre-K
- Physical Sciences: PS4.B
- Earth and ...
Stories in Stone
Guided Science 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
Exhibit Workshop
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, ...
Erie Canal Simple Machine Challenge
Lab Experience
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 ...
Light Up the Martian City: Alternative Energy Challenge
Engineering Design Lab
Inventor Center
Develop a system using solar and wind energy to light up a city on a Martian landscape, even when the sun is blocked by dust storms! We need a team to help invent a solar roof and wind turbine to generate enough electricity ...
Freshwater Around the World
Lab Experience
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
Lab Experience
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
Lab Experience
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 Science 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 Science 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
Live Presentation
Live Presentation
An exciting range of demonstrations displays many of the properties of Hydrogen, the number one most common element in the universe.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
PS1.B: Chemical Reactions
Live Science: Electricity Theater
Live Presentation
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!
PS3.A: Definitions of Energy
...
Inquiry Room Exploration
Guided Science 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 ...
Stormy Science
Guided Science 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.
ESS2.D: Weather ...
Insect Investigations
Guided Science 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.
LS1.A: Structure and Function
LS4.C: Adaptation
Magnet Exploration
Guided Science Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Learn about magnetic fields and experiment with materials that are magnetic. Explore attraction and repulsion. Make magnets float.
PS2.A: Forces and Motion
PS2.B: Types of Interactions
Rocks Fossils and More
Guided Science 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.
ESS2.A Earth Materials and Systems
LS4.A
Simple Machines & Fantastic Forces
Guided Science 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.
PS2.A: Forces and Motion
PS2.B: Types of Interactions
What's the Matter?
Guided Science 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.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
Frog Adaptations
Guided Science 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 ...
Sun, Moon and Stars
Planetarium Shows
Observe the Sun’s path through the sky from east to west. After sunset, find key constellations of the season by looking for distinctive features such as Orion’s Belt. Travel to the moon, returning just in time for sunrise.
ESS1.A The Universe ...
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 Experience
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 Explorations
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Collect data from field, forest and pond communities to gain insight into communities, succession, food webs, and population dynamics.
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.B Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
LS2.C Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning ...
Water Monitors
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
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.
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships ...
Nature Awareness
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Discover the beauty and complexity of the natural world through activities that engage all the senses.
LS1.A Structure and Function
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.C Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning and Resilience
LS4.D ...
Field Journal Journey
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Explore the complexity and biodiversity of the natural world through observation and data collection using field journals.
LS1.A Structure and Function
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.C Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning and Resilience
LS4.D Biodiversity ...
Focus on Native Frogs
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
This is a fun and dirty adventure that explores the amazing adaptations, lifecycle, and habit of the native frogs in our region.
LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms
LS4.C: Adaptation
Winter Ecology
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
January through February, examine how plants and animals adapt to winter. Hunt for tracks and other evidence of animal activity.
LS4.C Adaptation
LS4.D Biodiversity and Humans
Introduction to Natural Communities
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Explore the woods to discover how all living things are connected through food chains and the relationships between consumers, producers and decomposers.
LS2.B Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
RMSC DELIVERS: Light & Color
RMSC Delivers: 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
PS4.A Wave Properties
<...RMSC DELIVERS: Polymers
Hands-on: At Your School
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.
PS1.A Structure and Properties of Matter
PS1.B Chemical Reactions
RMSC DELIVERS: Rocks and Minerals
Hands-on: At Your School
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
Interactive Show/ Assembly: At Your School
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
Interactive Show/ Assembly: At Your School
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.
LS1.A Structure and Function
<...RMSC DELIVERS: Insects
RMSC Delivers: 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.
LS1.A Structure and Function
LS2....
RMSC DELIVERS: Pressure & Force
Interactive Show/ Assembly: At Your School
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
Interactive Show/ Assembly: At Your School
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?
Interactive Show/ Assembly: At Your School
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
Interactive Show/ Assembly: At Your School
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.
PS3....
RMSC DELIVERS: Energy
RMSC Delivers: 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.
<...Forest School Homeschool CNC Courses
Homeschool Program
Geology ROCKS!
Featured Combined Experience
Get two experiences for one with this new field trip!
Discover the science of tectonic plates with current data on our Science On a Sphere then embark on guided tour Stories in Stone with an engaging RMSC docent. Students ...
Mission: Mystery Planet
Guided Science 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.
ESS1.B ...
Animal Defense
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
This adventure explores the unique defense mechanisms that our local animals use to protect and defend themselves.
Earthskills
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Earthskills is adapted from CNC’s popular Forest School program. This lightly structured program allows students to explore crafts, tools, outdoor skills, and CNC at their ...
The Spice of Life
Guided Science 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.
<...
Sound Bites
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
Live Presentation
Join the soundscape ecology scientists as they explore our world through sound. Listen to and learn about the sounds around us, the soundscape, and how they affect the environment. In this program with audio, video, and audience participation you can feel and view sound.
...
Journey of Sound
Guided Science Museum Experiences
Explore how sound travels by experimenting with tuning forks, a spouting bowl, and instruments. Investigate of sound vibrations by creating a croaking frog!
PS4.A: Wave Properties
Climate and Our Changing Forest
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Discover the dynamics of interconnected forests, fungi networks and the woods wide web! Create a dendrochronology analysis of weather patterns over time. Explore how a changing climate affects flora and fauna, and collect data valuable to citizen science projects.
Climate change is an urgent, and often ...
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 the past. Explore the diversity of the Rochester region and learn about habitats and populations.
Liquid Nitrogen- Solids, Liquids & Gases
Live Presentation
Our coolest demonstrations, literally! This program explores temperature's effect on solids, liquids and gasses using liquid nitrogen.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
PS1.B: Chemical Reactions
Pressure
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.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
PS2.A Forces and Motion
Hydrogen
Live Presentation
An exciting range of demonstrations displays many of the properties of Hydrogen, the number one most common element in the universe.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
PS1.B: Chemical Reactions
Electricity Theater
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 some in attendance electrifying.
PS3.A: Definitions of Energy
PS2.B: Types of Interactions
Global Soundscapes: Mission to Record the Earth
Live Presentation
Join the soundscape ecology scientists as they explore our world through sound. Listen to and learn about the sounds around us, the soundscape, and how they affect the environment. In this program with audio, video, and audience participation you can feel and view sound.
...
Weather Made Simple
Guided Science Museum Experiences
Science On a Sphere
Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Students will investigate data on clouds, temperature, and precipitation to look for daily and seasonal changes in weather patterns.
ESS2.D Weather and Climate
Simple Machines & Fantastic Forces
Guided Science 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.
PS2.A: Forces and Motion
PS2.B: Types of Interactions
PS3.C:&...
Roving Robots
Guided Science Museum Experiences
Classroom Experience
Discover how robots are programmed to perform tasks. Program a robot to complete a mission in space. Build a robot to communicate to extraterrestrial life!
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems
ETS1.B Developing Possible ...
I See the Sky for PreK-K
Planetarium Shows
Young children learn about day and night, the Sun and moon, bright and faint stars, constellations and meteors.
Rotation and Orbits
Planetarium Shows
Take a virtual trip from Earth’s surface into the solar system to see vividly how rotation and revolution produce the cyclical sky changes we see.
Scale the Universe
Planetarium Shows
Expanding our view by powers of ten, we survey the universe from human scale to the limit of the observable universe, 100 to 1026 meters. Visualizations based on real NASA data.
Holiday Laser for Grades K-8
Planetarium Laser Show
A holiday classic returns, with popular songs by Mariah Carey, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Andy Williams, Mannheim Steamroller and others, choreographed to dancing laser light effects
Beaver Ecology
Guided Program Cumming Nature Center Experience
Discover adaptations, natural and cultural history of beavers. Explorations to past and present beaver sites to gain insight into communities, succession, food webs, and human influences
ESS2.E Biogeology
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.B Cycles of Matter ...
Light and Waves
Exhibit Workshop
Explore how light waves interact with one another and other objects to affect what we see. Learn about different careers in the field of optics and the types of work they do. The 50 minute experience includes hands-on experiments in both a classroom and in the Illumination exhibition.
&...
SciFi Tech
Limited Time Exhibition
This interactive exhibit chronicles our progression from science fiction to science fact, and illuminates emerging technologies that are just now showing up on our cultural radar.