Appropriate for: All Ages

Join the MSU Libraries for a Wikipedia-edit-a-thon to improve the coverage of women’s contributions to science! Only 18% of Wikipedia’ English language biographies are about women and we can improve the gender gap by creating and editing articles about women in science. This workshop will equip you with the tools you need to begin editing in Wikipedia, contributing edits that make a difference. All levels of Wikipedia experience are welcome.

Learn more about Women in Science Wikipedia-Edit-a-Thon

Appropriate for: All Ages

Gather around the campfire for a fun evening of chemistry demonstrations, flashlight hikes, and exciting hands-on activities. This event is hosted by Woldumar Nature Center and the MSU Graduate Women in Science Mid-Michigan Chapter.

Learn more about Campfire Science Night

Appropriate for: All Ages

Self-guided visit with butterflies in the amazing Indoor 4-H Children's Garden. Experience the mystery and beauty of Butterflies in the Garden. Watch and marvel as butterflies flutter and fly about the Indoor 4-H Children's Garden.

Learn more about MSU Indoor 4-H Children's Butterfly Garden Open House

Appropriate for: All Ages

From 11am to 4pm, enjoy free admission in celebration of W.K. Kellogg's land gift to MSU that created the Kellogg Biological Station! At the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, visitors can enjoy a walk around the grounds for free. At the W.K. Kellogg Manor house, step back into the past to learn more about the Kellogg legacy. Docents will pose as the 1920's residents of Eagle Heights, now called the Manor House. Character portrayal include W.K. Kellogg, Dr. Carrie Stains, The Cook, and others. The Sanctuary is located at 12685 East C Avenue, Augusta, MI 49012. The Manor House is located a mile down the road at 3700 E. Gull Lake Drive, Hickory Corners, MI 49060.

Learn more about Sustaining the Vision Open House at the Kellogg Biological Station

Appropriate for: Thirteen years and up

Experience the wonder and amazement of the world of physical and biological sciences as seen through scanning electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes, confocal scanning microscopes, and digital light microscopes.

Learn more about Tour of the Center for Advanced Microscopy

Appropriate for: Thirteen years and up

Take a guided, behind-the-scenes tour of the Museum's vertebrate collections, where over 117,000 specimens of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and fossils are preserved and cared for. See how these have been used for discovery and learning over the past 160 years. Suitable for ages 8 and up! Pre-registration required.

Learn more about Skeletons, Jaws, and Jars: A Tour of the MSU Museum Vertebrate Collections

Appropriate for: Thirteen years and up

Our wonderful MSU Observatory saw first light in 1970, and has contributed to 50 years of public outreach and student research. It's time to celebrate! Come hear about highlighted results from observational astronomy, student research, and telescopes from around the state! If you've ever wondered how astronomers spend their time, this is a great way to find out! Drop by for all day, or just a few minutes. All are invited, but the level of content will be aimed toward undergraduate students and amateur astronomers. Detailed schedule TBD and will be linked from our Observatory webpage.

Learn more about MSU Observatory Turns 50! (Workshop)

Appropriate for: All Ages

Come celebrate MSU Observatory's 50th Anniversary and the tradition of astronomy in Michigan! If the weather is clear, we'll be open and viewing the sky through our telescopes, looking at planets, nebulae, stars, and galaxies.

Learn more about MSU Observatory Turns 50! (Stargazing!)

Appropriate for: All Ages

Come get outdoors for a self-guided tour of the Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center! Join us for presentations on bird banding, avian health monitoring, bats, insects, marsh ecology, and more. This is also a chance to learn more about Citizen Science and how you can be a scientist in your own backyard!

Learn more about Ecology and More Extravaganza Tour

Appropriate for: All Ages

Join investigators, students, and lab staff on tours of the lab spaces and facilities at IQ that are usually closed to the public! Visitors may choose to go on guided 20-minute tours, including demonstrations and discussions within the lab spaces, or participate in hands-on science experiments in the common spaces of the building. Please note: Minors must be accompanied by an adult at all times on the premises. Tours will function on a first come-first served basis. Tour waves will go out every 10 minutes starting at 10:30 AM and will continue to go out until the last one at 12:20 PM. A schedule of tours and demonstrations will be available at registration the day of the open house.

Learn more about Pioneering Biomedical Research with IQ (Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering)

Appropriate for: All Ages

At the MSU Bug House you can see our displays of insects from around the world, and see, touch and hold our live arthropods, including beetles, cockroaches, scorpions, and tarantulas. Entomology students and staff will answer your buggy questions and tell you cool things about the largest group of animals on earth.

Learn more about Tour and Explore the World of Insects at the MSU Bug House

Appropriate for: All Ages

Come tour the Lansing Makers Network! Lansing Makers Network is a volunteer-run makerspace where members use collaboration and technology to make unique and beautiful objects. We will offer visitors a chance to tour our space and see how we use technology as a tool for creativity.

Learn more about Tour the Lansing Makerspace

Appropriate for: All Ages

Join AIA architects Kristin Pennock (MSU IPF), Daniel Bollman (East Arbor) and Bryan Lijewski (MEDC) as we meander together from Eustace-Cole Hall to the Broad Art Museum and visualize the invisible! We will look for vestiges of the past in historic buildings, observe indicators of structural forces, touch on phenomenology, and talk about how technology makes it possible to realize visions not previously possible.

Learn more about Visualizing the Invisible: Architecture on East Campus

Appropriate for: All Ages

Learn about the nervous system by engaging in hands-on activities, including touching human brains, performing a cow eye dissection, undergoing “mind control,” playing games, learning about research opportunities on campus, finding out how to protect your brain, making neuroscience-themed crafts, and more!

Learn more about Neuroscience Fair

Appropriate for: All Ages

Come see how your heart's beating helps keep your brain alive! Explore the anatomy and physiology of the heart with REAL organs and have your EKG measured! MSU undergraduate Physiology students and medical students will be here to answer any of your questions!

Learn more about We Have Heart!

Appropriate for: All Ages

Between what we folks plant there, and what comes up by natural introduction, we carry a number of toxic plants as co-inhabitants on our properties. Join Beal Botanical Garden curator Peter Carrington for an introduction to the toxic plants we bring intentionally and the ones we tolerate invading our space.

Learn more about Poisonous Plants in Your Yard

Appropriate for: All Ages

Visit the MSU Herbarium to see our world-spanning collection of over 500,000 plant specimens! Make your own and learn to recognize and interpret plant biodiversity while interacting with experts. Come and see 200-year-old specimens while learning about the Herbarium’s rich history and exciting future. Look through microscopes at a world invisible to the naked eye, then join us on a guided walking tour of the Teaching Conservatory to see a steamy tropical jungle, a hot, dry desert, and more! These facilities are rarely open to the public, so don’t miss them!

Learn more about A Bountiful Branch of Botany: Tours of the MSU Herbarium and Teaching Conservatory

Appropriate for: All Ages

Please join us for a free docent led tour of the exhibition Never Spoken Again at the MSU Broad Art Museum. Comprised of artists working within the subjects of archeology, science, and art, Never Spoken Again raises questions around not only what and why we collect, but also the impact of collections within our larger community. All are welcome to join in, as we have conversations around these subjects, and the art that is on display.

Learn more about MSU Broad Art Museum: Never Spoken Again Tour

Appropriate for: All Ages

At MSU Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Lab you’ll get a chance to explore various types of cutting-edge technologies and learn how they’re being used in classes. We’ll be doing activities including: protecting your privacy online with a mini-cryptoparty; experiencing Virtual Reality; and seeing floor-to-ceiling data visualizations in our 360-degree visualization room.

Learn more about MSU Library Open House Digital Scholarship Lab: Online Privacy, Virtual Reality, and Immersive Visualization

Appropriate for: All Ages

At MSU Libraries’ MakeCentral makerspace, you’ll get a chance to explore various types of “critical making” technologies and learn how they’re being used in classes. We’ll be demoing various technologies, including 3D printing, Raspberry Pi projects, and circuit-making.

Learn more about MSU Library Open House Makerspace: What’s a Makerspace?

Appropriate for: Thirteen years and up

See how to read the signs and symbols of a topographic map and associate the two dimensional map with the three dimensions of the land around us. Discover the differences between magnetic and true north, and what magnetic variation (declination) is all about. Learn the practical skill of how to take a bearing with a compass.

Learn more about MSU Library Open House Map Library: Compass and Map Navigation

Appropriate for: All Ages

Books containing preserved plants are extremely fragile and light-sensitive, so we rarely take them out of climate-controlled storage -- but today you can view them in person! From the massive "Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis" to the tiny "Pressed Flowers from the Holy Land," these volumes are a must-see. Make sure to check out the Seed Library Open House, as well!

Learn more about MSU Library Open House: Botanical Gems- Rare Books with Preserved Plant Specimens

Appropriate for: All Ages

If you like origami, you'll enjoy making a book with a single sheet of paper! Even the youngest will enjoy this creative activity, and it's a great way to make a souvenir of your day at the MSU Science Festival!

Learn more about MSU Library Open House: Make Your Own Book!

Appropriate for: All Ages

Experience the history of printing technology by making your own bookmark on a 1901 iron printing press. Remarkably, this type of press is essentially the same mechanism developed by Johannes Gutenberg. Later printers refined the process, but the basic concept was unchallenged for nearly 400 years.

Learn more about MSU Library Open House: Print Your Own Science Festival Bookmark!

Appropriate for: All Ages

In the Special Collections Gallery, exhibit curator Andrea Kepsel will give guided tours of a new exhibit on animals and people working together, featuring rare books on falconry, equestrian history, working dogs, and more from our renowned collection on the history of veterinary medicine.

Learn more about MSU Library Open House: Rare Books of Animals and People Working Together

Appropriate for: All Ages

Come and see MSU's new seed library and learn about gardening with heirloom plants. Take some soil and a seed and see how it starts to grow at home. Make sure to check out Books with Preserved Plant Specimens along with this open house!

Learn more about MSU Library Open House: Seed Library

Appropriate for: Thirteen years and up

Enjoy a brief tour of the theater scene shop and talk about how we work and build the shows for the MSU Theater and Opera departments!

Learn more about MSU Theater Scene Shop Tour

Appropriate for: All Ages

Tour the small student-run farm that resides within Brody Neighborhood. We are part of RISE, a living-learning community dedicated to increasing campus-wide sustainability. Our greenhouse's mission is to educate the MSU community on growing food, eating seasonally and locally, and closing the food cycle loop. We sell certified organic produce to cafeterias on campus, Red Haven, and the Kellogg Hotel and State Room.

Learn more about Tour Bailey Greenhouse and Urban Farm: A Student Run Learning Center

Appropriate for: All Ages

Vernal pools are more than just mud puddles in the woods that dry out in the summer! They are extremely important and diverse features in our forest ecosystems that provide critical habitat for a variety of organisms. These pools are important sources of food and water in early spring when very little else is available. Join us in MSU's Baker Woodlot to look and listen for the unique invertebrates, amphibians, and other critters that make these special pools their home.

Learn more about Vernal Pools in MSU's Baker Woodlot: Our Spring Wake-up Call!

Appropriate for: All Ages

Landscape services employs seven full-time arborists who maintain close to twenty thousand trees on MSU's campus, some of which are close to 400 years old. See how technology is changing the field of arboriculture, from electric powered chain saws to advanced tree injection techniques.

Learn more about Tour Arboriculture at MSU

Appropriate for: All Ages

What happens when you toss something in the recycling bin? First, it's hauled to a material recovery facility, like ours at MSU, where it’s combined with similar material and baled for shipment. Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at how student and full-time staff work together to process over 8 million pounds of recyclables collected on campus and at our public drop-off center. You’ll walk around the floor where we operate, take a step up to the sort line where materials are hand separated, and come face-to-face with a 1,400-pound bale of recyclables.

Learn more about MSU Recycling: Behind the Scenes Tour

Appropriate for: All Ages

If you are curious about what happens in a world-class rare isotope facility and why, there is no better way to discover than by touring. Tours of the research area generally include demonstrations, an introduction to the goals and methods of nuclear science, and a walk-through of vaults where nuclei are accelerated, filtered, and studied!

Learn more about Tour the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

Appropriate for: All Ages

MSU's South Campus Anaerobic Digester facility converts dairy manure and food waste into electrical energy for campus. The facility has operated continuously since 2013, utilizing over 20,000 tons of organic waste annually to produce enough electricity for more than 200 typical Michigan households.

Learn more about MSU Anaerobic Digester Tour

Appropriate for: All Ages

This show will use the planetarium dome to project photospheres, 3D models, and simulations of equipment at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. These will include locations that the public are not allowed to visit on tours. The presentation will give a thorough explanation of the research done at NSCL (and the future Facility for Rare Isotope Beams).

Learn more about Nuclear Science from a Whole New Angle: Virtual Tour of the NSCL and FRIB

Appropriate for: Thirteen years and up

Join Beal Botanical Garden curator Peter Carrington for a tour of the Beal Botanical Garden to showcase the edible plants that tempt us into the fresh menu of spring wild vegetables. How to gather them safely and keep everyone asking for more.

Learn more about Wild Plant Foods and the Salad Bar of Spring

Appropriate for: All Ages

If the weather is clear, we'll be open for stargazing with our 24-inch telescope and additional smaller scopes! We'll look at planets, stars, and, if it's nice and dark, galaxies and nebulae!

Learn more about Public Observing at MSU Observatory

Appropriate for: All Ages

The Harris Nature Center is offering participants a chance to explore nature in our Nature Exploration Area. Pick up an activity sheet in the nature building and then have fun with the activities, like climbing a Turtle Sculpture or Spider Web, explore the Log Jam, dig in the MI Fossil Dig, and delve into the Beaver Lodge's features. No registration is needed! While at the nature center, participants can visit the resident wildlife inside the nature building.

Learn more about Explore Harris Nature Center Open House

Appropriate for: All Ages

April 22, 1970 saw the world’s first Earth Day. Join us at the MSU Museum on the 50th Earth Day as we reflect how our planet’s biosphere has changed over the past half century. We’ll learn about habitat loss, extinction rates, ocean acidification, and climate change, all illustrated in dynamic, living color on “Science on a Sphere,” one of the world’s most dynamic learning technologies. Earth Day was inspired by the famous Apollo photographs of the Earth’s “blue marble” rotating in space: we honor these inspirational images through Science on a Sphere, which simulates our rotating planet in breath-taking detail. Animated visualizations on the Sphere will take us on a voyage discovery around our planet, from deep sea environments to the far reaches of the atmosphere.

Learn more about Celebrate Earth Day on Science on a Sphere at the MSU Museum!