Photo: Kyle Bray/WBZ NewsRadio
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The MIT Museum hosted the 18th Annual Cambridge Science Carnival on Sunday.
The Science Carnival has been going on since 2007 and has attracted thousands of attendees with numerous booths showing off projects and experiments from local schools, non-profits and programs.
This year, over 140 booths were present at the 4-hour event, such as ones run by The Robot Petting Zoo, the NSF Center for Molecularly Optimized Networks, the Tumble Science Podcast and the MIT Physics Department.
Other booths showed off how to find DNA in a strawberry, how satellites work, and how to give trash a second life.
Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons spoke about how this was one of her favorite events of the year.
“We tried this experiment with MIT 18 years ago, and here we are, having up to 20,000 people from all across Cambridge, including visitors as well,” she said. “We want to make sure people know that, yes, right in your neighborhood, you can walk here, you can bike here, you can take public transit here, and if you must, you can even drive here and experience an opportunity unlike any in the country.”
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MIT Museum Director Michael John Gorman explained that this event allows people to engage with scientific ideas in a very approachable way.
“Sometimes people think that science is very removed and abstract and hidden behind closed doors of labs,” he said. “At an event like this, you can see actually the human face of science; these are people like you and me, they may well be your neighbors, and they are making discoveries that can benefit people across the world.”
Gorman also mentioned that a science-forward event like this is so important at a time where federal funding for STEAM is being taken away.
“It’s really important for the broadest possible public to understand the value of science and the importance of science, whether it’s for health, whether it’s for new technologies, innovations that change the world,” he said.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Kyle Bray (@KyleBrayWBZ) reports.