On any given day, the Chabot Space & Science Center is teeming with excited children.
As old as high school students and young as kindergartners, their imagination runs wild in the 86,000-square-foot, multi-building center that’s dedicated to astronomy and the sciences.
Where else could you stare at a ceiling showing starscapes, pretend you’re on a space mission to Mars, feel dry ice or see an antique telescope that’s older than most visitors’ ancestors?
Chabot is nestled in the dense, rolling hills of Oakland, located on 13 acres in the Redwood Regional Park–also a popular destination for hikers and bikers. From Pleasanton, it’s about 30 minutes, or 27 miles away.
Nearly 150,000 people visit the center each year, according to Sharon Fletcher, director of sales and marketing at Chabot. About one-third of those visitors are school children.
The sprawling campus of buildings housing the unique equipment, labs, demonstrations and theaters, is relatively new. In 1996, workers broke ground on the center after a joint powers authority reached an agreement to relocate the observatory from Mountain Boulevard in Oakland, where it had been since 1915. Next year, the nonprofit center will celebrate its landmark 125th anniversary.
Not only is the center fairly new and technologically and structurally sound, but exhibits and showings are always changing, adding to the reasons people should visit the attraction more than once.
As you pass through the entrance, a planetarium is one direction while a large theater is another. Currently, the theater, similar to an IMAX but on a smaller scale, is showing “Dinosaurs Alive!”
In February, the domed-screen Tien MegaDome Theater held a screening of the movie “The Astronaut Farmer.” Actors from the movie, including Billy Bob Thorton and Virginia Madsen, attended and raved about the facility, said communications manager Sarah Rogers. It’s also had a showing of children’s movie “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller.
With 70-millimeter giant-screen projection capabilities, the theater has a digital presentation four times that of high definition, Fletcher said.
The 241-seat Ask Jeeves Planetarium is Northern California’s only full-dome digital projection system, using six digital light projectors.
Inside the “Destination Universe” exhibit, visitors can get interactive, watching galaxies collide, walk through a black hole and learn how stars were born and how they die.
For a sensory experience, head to “In the Dark,” on loan to the center through Aug. 19. A hands-on experience, the exhibit teaches visitors how to discover senses other than sight and be aware of natural surroundings–just as say, bats would. The exhibit features different themes. In June, the theme is human adaptation to darkness, while in July and August, the theme is darkness in the universe.
An integral part of Chabot is education and a discovery lab is where children can learn more about space and science in a classroom-setting.
If going to the moon is your idea of fun, you’ll enjoy “One Giant Leap Forward: A Moon Odyssey,” where children and adults can learn about moon, taking a moonwalk, trying on a space helmet and sit in a replica of the Mercury space capsule.
Outside the buildings, there is a center courtyard where school children eat their lunches in an outdoor amphitheatre. Over at the Ron Dellums Building (named after Oakland’s mayor) is one of the most popular and well-trafficked parts of the center: “Solar Go-Round.” In this exhibit, kids could be found racing around the science-themed arcade. From sampling what dry ice might feel like to turning a crank to make a liquid funnel to moving around floating disks to show the lack of friction in space, the exhibit is a huge hit. Over at the Lunar Lander, children can practice landing a space shuttle on the moon.
Both a learning tool and a way to encourage teamwork, the Challenger Learning Center gives students a space mission they have to carry out. There are three parts to the center: the debriefing room where an “astronaut” explains what their mission is, the mission control room where students are responsible for the most finite details of carrying out the mission and inside the space shuttle, where students become scientists, engineers and researchers on their simulated journey.
“The kids take on a role, an emergency happens and they have to work on a mission together,” Fletcher explained.
While many of the exhibits and features are kid-friendly, adults and seniors also enjoy visiting the center.
Some seniors enjoy coming when the center is bustling with kids while other seniors prefer to visit at an off-peak time, Fletcher said.
While some of the newest games and exhibits are popular attractions, the center’s oldest relics are also a big draw, including Chabot’s collection of antique telescopes.
“Our telescopes are the largest public viewing in the western United States,” Rogers said.
Three antique telescopes are each housed in an observatory, or domed building. The smallest is Leah, which is an 8-inch telescope donated by Anthony Chabot. The next largest is Rachel, a 20-inch lens, and the largest telescope is Nellie, which has a 36-inch refracting lens and is the newest to the collection. Nellie is controlled by a computer and images from the telescope’s digital camera can be found on Chabot’s Web site. It would make sense then, that Chabot has one of the best views of outer space. While the three telescopes aren’t open for observation during the day, they are open for viewing on Friday and Saturday nights.
“The transit telescope dates back to 1885. Chabot’s astronomers used it to make observations every Friday night to set the official time in Oakland,” Rogers said.
The center has also recently embarked on a mission to be more eco-friendly. Solar panels help provide electricity to the center, and a new initiative called Kids Go Green: Be Part of the Solution encourages youths to be stewards of the Earth, reducing daily carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Chabot also offers free compost.
For more information about the Chabot Space & Science Center, visit http://chabotspace.org.
Did you know?
The Chabot Space & Science Center traces its roots back to 1883, when hydraulic engineer Anthony Chabot donated an 8-inch Alvan Clark refracting telescope (named Leah, which is on display at the center) to the city of Oakland.An observatory housing the telescope opened in Lafayette Square in downtown Oakland later that year. It was later relocated to the Oakland hills in 1915 where it stood for 85 years before being placed at the center’s current location.
For decades, the observatory served as the official timekeeping station for the entire Bay Area, measuring time with its transit telescope.
The current 86,000-square-foot state-of-the-art complex opened in August 2000. It cost $84.1 million and took approximately 3 1/2 years to build.
