Museum & Science Center
Hours:
Monday–Saturday: 9am–5pm
Sunday: 11am–5pm
Museum CLOSED: Monday, September 26–Saturday, October 1. RE-OPENS: October 2
Columbus Day, Monday, October 10: 9am–5pm
Admission:
$13 adults, $12 seniors and college students with ID, $11 ages 3–18, free for children under 3 and RMSC members.
Strasenburgh Planetarium
Hours and Admission: See show schedule
Museum and Planetarium Combined Admission:
$17 adults, $15 seniors and college students with ID, $14 ages 3-18
Cumming Nature Center
Hours:
Wednesday–Friday: 9am–3:30pm; Saturday–Sunday: 9am–4:30pm
Admission:
RMSC members free; General public requested donation—$3 per person; $10 per family.
3rd ROC Café
Hours:
Monday–Saturday: 10am–3pm
Sunday: 11am–3pm
Museum Special Events
657 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607
Unless otherwise noted, programs are located at RMSC and are free with museum admission
Science that Made History
Saturday, October 8–Monday, October 10: 11am–3pm
Discover, hands-on, how science transformed from ancient times through the Industrial Revolution. Make your own sextant to navigate the stars, encounter simple machines, experiment with Newton’s law and more in a fun-filled family event that will answer questions such as:
- What did Ben Franklin do with the kite and the key?
- How can you figure out if a coin is made of gold with just a bucket of water?
- Why was Galileo imprisoned for life for saying the Sun was the center of the solar system?
Richard C. Shultz Science on the Edge Lectures
Thursday, October 6: 7pm (doors open at 5:30pm for Museum exploration prior to lecture)
The Science of Fashion
Jeffrey Mayer, associate professor of Fashion, Fashion History and Textiles at Syracuse University, will discuss the major changes to the fashion industry due to the advent of “test tube fashion.” From the development of synthetic dyes to synthetic fibers to 3D-printed garments and fabrics which are ‘grown’ in a laboratory, science has helped to shape and advance fashion. This lecture will cover the key scientific discoveries in textiles and fashion from the mid-19th century to the contemporary runway.
Adult RMSC Member: $8; General Public: $10
Student* RMSC Member: $5; General Public: $6
RMSC Employees, Docents/Volunteers, Rochester Engineering Society: $2
*Students through grade 12 or college students with valid college ID.
To register, visit www.rmsc.org or call 585.697.1942.
RMSC After Dark: Speakeasy
Friday, October 14: 7–11pm
Lindy Hop your way back to the roaring 20s with music, dance lessons, science experiments and other swell activities that are sure to be the bee’s knees. Experience the three floors of the Museum transformed into a speakeasy-style joint with nothing bootleg about it!
Pre-purchased: $10 members, $13 general public; Day of: $15; VIP: $30
Pre-purchasing tickets strongly encouraged. Visit www.rmsc.org or call 585.697.1942.
RMSC After Dark events are sponsored by City Newspaper, Official Beer Sponsor: Bell’s Brewery, Inc., Contributing Sponsors: William Grant & Sons and Dr. Frank Wines, Special Thanks: CrazyDog T-Shirts
Science Alive
Sponsored by M&T Bank, Corning Incorporated Foundation and Time Warner Cable
Exciting experiments with museum educators, hands-on explorations with science experts from our community and more.
Electricity Theater
Musical lightning powered by twin Tesla coils zaps across the dark theater.
Saturdays, Sundays and School Breaks: 12pm, 2pm and 4pm; Tuesdays and Thursdays: 4pm
Science Encounters
Try your hand at fun science experiments with RMSC staff and volunteers in exhibit galleries.
Saturdays, Sundays and School Breaks: 10:15am, 11:15am, 12:15pm, 1:15pm, 2:15pm and 3:15pm
Live Science Shows
Discover fiery explosions and extreme temperatures through live performances on the Bausch Auditorium stage.
Saturdays, Sundays and School Breaks: 1pm and 3pm
Science On a Sphere® Presentations
Engage in the wonders of our planet and beyond as you experience scientific data in three dimensions on our giant globe. See Earth and the universe in a whole new way through stunning projections of atmospheric storms, climate change, planetary activity and ocean temperature.
Saturdays, Sundays and School Breaks: 11:30am and 1:30pm
Featured Presenters
Exciting upcoming programs with featured scientists and science enthusiasts from across the community! Check www.rmsc.org for details.
Show times are subject to change. Call 585.697.1942 to confirm. To request an interpreter for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, please call at least two weeks in advance: 585.697.1942.
Simulator Rides
Enjoy special limited-time only simulator rides throughout the year. Most* special rides are $1 per person (members included). Visitors can enjoy the Lake Ontario ride daily for free.
Magic Carpet Ride
Fly along with a genie and his magic carpet through a mystical world to save a princess.
October: Daily
Hurricane Simulator
Experience the power of 75mph hurricane-force winds! Several people can experience at the same time for the price of one simulation. *$2 charge per simulation (members included).
Daily
EXHIBITS:
Optical Society of America (OSA) Centennial Exhibit
Opens October 21
Location: Strasenburgh Planetarium
Explore 100 iconic images and many local stories through a multimedia experience marking a century of innovation in the world of optics and photonics.
Newcomers to Expedition Earth
Look for a new full-sized muskox and caribou coming soon to the Expedition Earth exhibition.
Special thanks to Alan and Sandy Stone for their generous support.
Science On a Sphere
Sponsored by Harris Beach PLLC and O’Connell Electric Company
Engage in the wonders of our planet and beyond as you experience scientific data in three dimensions on our giant globe. See Earth and the universe in a whole new way through stunning projections of atmospheric storms, climate change, planetary activity and ocean temperature.
Illumination: The World of Light and Optics
Sponsored by G-S Plastic Optics and Tel-Tru Manufacturing
Experiment with lasers, lenses and mirrors as you explore the nature of light and optics. Immerse yourself in more than fifteen hands-on exhibits that demonstrate exciting scientific concepts including reflection and refraction, radio waves and color temperature. Crank, spin and illuminate to make light bend, sound emanate and shadows dance. Discover the best parts of working in optics and photonics at the new media installation featuring Andy Germanow from G-S Plastic Optics. Spark a passion for science within as you discover the true wonders of light.
Electricity Theater
Featuring “singing” Tesla coils, Electricity Theater is a display of brilliant lightning zaps accompanied by popular music. Visitors watch the dark theater become splashed with light via twin solid-state Tesla coils, and allow that spark in them to ignite as they explore the excitement of electricity and all that goes with it.
The American Civil War: The Impact of the Industrial Revolution
Industry and new technologies had a huge impact on the military during the Civil War. Learn how the railroad, telegraph, photography and other advancements influenced the war. Discover unique items on display including rifles, military equipment, diaries and uniforms worn by local soldiers.
Inventor Center
October 7, 2016-January 8, 2017, Weekdays 2-4:30pm, Saturdays, Sundays and School Breaks 10am-4:30pm
Supporting Sponsor: G.W. Lisk Company, Inc. Made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Power cities, build cars, harness wind and fire catapults. Dive into a hands-on exploration of the inventive process. Participate in engineering and design challenges as you tinker with raw materials to create working inventions that can be tested and shared. Challenges change every 3-5 months.
- Current challenge: Wind Energy, Opens October 7: The City has lost power! We need your help to invent a better wind turbine and help light up the city. How many blades should your turbine have? How should it look? Get your creative juices flowing and work with each other to generate the energy needed to power up the city.
Nano Mini-Exhibit
Imagine and discover a world you can’t see! Get the family together and become engaged in the world of nanoscale science, engineering and technology. Hands-on exhibits present the basics of nano, introduce real-world applications and explore the implications of this new technology.
Erie Canal Lock
Crank open lock doors and operate a tugboat. Get hands-on insights into how canal locks work in the real world.
KEVA Planks
Come build with us! Construct wooden masterpieces of all shapes and sizes with KEVA Planks, a building exhibit experience. Precision cut, identical construction blocks, KEVA Planks stack with surprising stability. Using only gravity, visitors dabble with physics in order to achieve balance, optimum proportion and strength.
Under Construction: Building Careers
Founding Supporters: Builders Exchange of Rochester, Max & Marian Farash Charitable Foundation, UNICON, John W. Danforth Company, LeChase Construction Services, LLC, Manning Squires Hennig Company, Inc. and O’Connell Electric Company
Drill into an exciting hands-on exploration of construction trades. Built in-house by RMSC staff, the exhibition features the fascinating jobs of electricians, plumbers and other trade specialists. Maneuver a giant crane on the “job site,” install plumbing for a sink and much more. Also, learn from local trade professionals who built the Sustainability Institute Hall, home of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability on campus at RIT.
Energy Trail
Support from: AVANGRID Foundation/RG&E
Built in-house by RMSC staff and volunteers, Energy Trail is a multi-sensory, highly physical experience where YOU hold the power. Compare types of energy. Cycle, push and pump to create power and discover the outcome. Complete the trail, which covers all three floors of the RMSC, and win a prize! Don’t forget to collect it at the front desk.
AdventureZone
Dive to the bottom of Lake Ontario in the Deep Submergence Vehicle simulator. Test your strength on the Genesee Gorge climbing wall. Explore Rochester weather. Experiment with wind currents, stream erosion and more.
Expedition Earth
Explore your connections to the natural world in this spectacular, interactive natural science exhibition. Discover how our region’s landscape and life forms have changed over hundreds of millions of years. See a full-size mounted mastodon skeleton, uncover bones in the dig site, enter a glacial ice cave and much more. Look for a new full-sized muskox and caribou coming soon!
How Things Work
Discover the science behind everyday devices. Through fun, hands-on investigation, find out how mechanisms such as light switches, thermostats and traffic signals work.
Raceways
Discover the principles of moving objects. Experiment with momentum, friction, gravity and acceleration as you send wooden balls looping and racing over ramps.
Flight to Freedom: Rochester’s Underground Railroad
Presented with support from the City of Rochester and the Underground Railroad Heritage Trail, a program of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
Explore stories of courageous African Americans who traveled through Rochester on their way from slavery to freedom. Find out about local people who helped them.
At the Western Door
The hundreds of objects displayed show the Seneca’s and Haudenosaunee’s creative responses to new technologies and materials introduced following European contact. Clan and family continue to bind communities together and define who the Seneca and Haudenosaunee are.
The Rochester Business Hall of Fame
Presented by the RMSC in partnership with Junior Achievement of Rochester and the Rochester Business Journal. Sponsored by Bank of America
This interactive exhibit celebrates exemplary Rochester leaders who have made outstanding, enduring contributions to business and community in the greater Rochester region.
Strasenburgh Planetarium
657 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607
Weekends & Evenings: 585.697.1945 | Weekdays: 585.697.1942
Shows subject to change
Astronomy for Adults
Adult lifelong learners seeking an intellectually stimulating program blending science, the arts and history. Not geared for children. Each session lasts about an hour.
Wednesday, Oct. 5: 2pm – Connections: Art, Music, Astronomy
One of the Planetarium’s most popular adult programs returns! See how top-level artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Ansel Adams were meticulous observers of the astronomical phenomena they depicted, and how modern astronomers have reconstructed the celestial configurations we see in their works. Hear and understand specific musical elements that give an otherworldly sound to works such as Ligeti’s “Lux Aeterna” (known from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey).
Wednesday, Oct. 19: 2pm – Einstein’s Outrageous Universe: Recent Research
Gravitational waves, black holes, dark energy, the Big Bang – these are some of the consequences of Einstein’s theory of gravity, published 100 years ago. Your instructors will have just returned from a three-day, invitation-only educators’ workshop at the University of Chicago’s Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, hearing the latest from scientists working on the cosmic frontiers. We’ll bring you the best stories and the newest imagery and visualizations.
$7 Adults
$6 Seniors 62+ or group members
$5 RMSC Members
Visit www.rmsc.org to register. Groups of 10 or more, call RMSC group scheduling experts at 585-697-1942.
Giant-Screen Films
Admission: adults $7; seniors and college students with ID $6; ages 3–18 $6; RMSC members $3, children under 3 free. Children under 5 years old are admitted to daytime shows only.
Giant-screen films on Wednesdays and Saturdays include open captioning on the screen with support from the Theatre Development Fund TAP Plus program, in cooperation with the New York State Council on the Arts.
“To Fly”
Length: 45 min. For all ages.
Find thrills in a classic journey through the history of flight, from early balloon flights to 20th-century space missions. Produced in 1976 for the opening of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, where it still inspires crowds today.
Show times: www.rmsc.org/StrasenburghPlanetarium
Star Shows
Admission: adults $7; seniors and college students $6; ages 3–18 $6; RMSC members and children under 3 free.
“Secrets of Jupiter” Opens October 1
Length: 40 min. For older children and adults
Discover how NASA’s Juno space probe investigations on Jupiter might tell us how our planets formed. Meanwhile, the Great Red Spot is mysteriously shrinking. Why? And NASA is working on a mission to the ice moon Europa.
Show times: www.rmsc.org/StrasenburghPlanetarium
“Planet Spectacular”
Length: 40 min. For ages 5-8.
See the best photos from NASA space probes and the world’s observatories. Then let “Carl” the star projector make a realistic indoor sky for a tour of planets and constellations you can see this month.
Show times: www.rmsc.org/StrasenburghPlanetarium
“Animals in the Sky”
Length: 40 min. For ages 3 to 6 and the adults with them.
Find animal shapes in the clouds and constellations in a story on the indoor sky. Dogs, a swan, an eagle, a lion and a whale! On an imaginary trip to the moon, we find no animals— they are all living on Earth.
Show times: www.rmsc.org/StrasenburghPlanetarium
“The Sky Tonight”
Length: 30 min. For ages 5 years to adult.
This concise tour of the stars, constellations and planets in the current sky uses new, solid-state lasers to guide you through the magnificent starfield produced by the 46-year-old star projector. See this show, then step outside to see the real sky.
Show times: www.rmsc.org/StrasenburghPlanetarium
“My Planets”
Length: 40 min. For children ages 3–5 and the adults with them.
Especially for young children, this friendly introduction to the Planetarium features worlds in our solar system as they appear in the sky and through a telescope.
Show times: www.rmsc.org/StrasenburghPlanetarium
Saturday Night Laser Shows
Sponsored by City Newspaper
Thanks to its pure wavelengths, laser light provides an intense color sensation whether faint or dazzlingly bright. Our solid-state lasers put brighter and more intense color than ever before among the stars inside the Planetarium dome, accompanying great songs on a top-quality sound system.
October Shows
Led Zeppelin Laser Saturdays at 8:15pm | The Beatles in Laser Light Saturdays at 9:30pm
Length: 60 minutes each. Children under age 5 are not admitted to this show.
Admission for ONE show: adults $7; seniors, college students, students ages 5–18, RMSC members $6.
Admission for BOTH shows, back-to-back: adults $11; seniors, college students, students ages 5–18, RMSC members $9.
Cumming Nature Center
6472 Gulick Road, Naples, NY 14512
585.374.6160
Hours: Trails open five days a week: Wednesday through Friday, 9am–3:30pm; Saturday and Sunday, 9am–4:30pm (closed Monday and Tuesday).
Admission: RMSC members free; General public donation requested—$3 per person; $10 per family. Unless otherwise noted, hikes/programs are free with admission
Morning Birdsong Hike
Saturdays, October 1, 15 and 29: 8–10am
From beginners to advanced birders, anyone who is charmed by the sounds of birds should join us at the Cumming Nature Center. These volunteer-led walks through the hemlock forests and around the ponds of our 900-acre classroom are a great way to explore the magical sounds that the early morning has to offer.
Falling Leaves Hike
Saturday, October 15: 10am–12pm
Discover how nature prepares for winter and explore fall foliage on this guided exploration of the autumnal forest.
Heritage Maker Fall Fair
Saturday, October 22: 10am–4pm
Family-friendly event previewing the nature center’s educational series on traditional food and craft. Chaperoned forest adventures for kids allow adults time to explore a variety of artisan demonstrations from beer brewing and bread baking to blacksmithing and basket weaving.
The Missing Rainbow
Saturday, Oct. 22: 10am–12pm
Be an investigative reporter as you search for colorful pieces of the missing rainbow. Travel through various habitats and bring a small bag to collect mementos of your experience.
Rochester Museum & Science Center (RMSC) includes the Science Museum, Strasenburgh Planetarium and Cumming Nature Center. Offering experiences at the Museum with more than 200 interactive exhibits, Planetarium with a 65-foot dome and Nature Center on 900 acres, the RMSC stimulates community interest in exploration. In addition, the more than 1.2 million RMSC collection items tell the story of Rochester’s past including its rich history of innovation and invention. RMSC receives major funding from Monroe County, where it is one of the top three most visited attractions serving children and families. For more information about RMSC, visit www.rmsc.org. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
