The New York Hall of Science will really take off on Aug. 19, which is National Aviation Day.
Head to the Flushing Meadows Corona Park museum for a multi-sensory musical experience and flight videos from 10 am to 5 pm.
Performing artist Jesse Jams will present a high-energy show that facilitates the development of skills like active listening, body awareness, and coordination while fostering peer socialization and language acquisition. (The Astoria resident and St. John’s University graduate is an occupational therapist who specializes in sensory procession and integration.)
The rest of the program, which is part of the ongoing Summertime at NYSCI program, features crafts, flight-and-bottle rocket demos, and special screenings of NASA videos. Don’t forget the nine-hole Rocket Park Mini Golf Course, where players explore science concepts such as propulsion, gravity, escape velocity, and gravitational assist.
The Aviation Day program comes only a few weeks after the reopening of Great Hall Terrace, which now features outdoor café style seating and benches, snacks, entertainment, and the Island of Fun, where oversized Jenga, Connect 4, Tic Tac Toss!, and Dominoes encourage collaborative play.
Plus, the also-recently-renovated Anthony Viscusi Gallery now has a Chill Zone with blacklight games, crafts, science challenges, physical activities like hopscotch, a tape obstacle course, interactive projection activities, and Silent Disco.
The museum’s front entrance is at 47-01 111th St. The venue has a large parking lot.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Aug. 19 as National Aviation Day in 1939. At the time, the plane industry was fledging and air shows were happening around the country. The date is also the birthday of Orville Wright, who invented, built, and flew the world’s first motor-operated airplane with his brother, Wilbur, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on Dec. 17, 1903.
Images: New York Hall of Science