Long Island Aquarium Exhibit Artist Eli Fishman shows Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter one of two steel fish sculptures that mark a fish ladder at Grangebel Park. (Courtesy photo)
Two steel fish sculptures were unveiled this week at Grangebel Park in Riverhead to commemorate “World Fish Migration Day” today. The sculptures are part of a newly renovated fish ladder by Long Island Aquarium Exhibit artist Eli Fishman. (more…)
Scouts from Cub Scout Pack 90 in Mount Sinai stopped by the Long Island Science Center Saturday to learn about engineering. (Tim Gannon photo)
Most lists of the top careers usually have engineering in there somewhere.
So it’s fitting that the Long Island Science Center on West Main Street in Riverhead is getting kids interested in engineering at an early age. (more…)
BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | The entrance to Long Island Science Center on West Main Street.
I couldn’t believe 60 first-graders could stay so captivated for so long. Every kid’s eyes were glued to the center of the room, heads tilted, little mouths agape. They were spellbound. But this wasn’t “Fantasia” or a more modern Disney movie. This was science.
Michael White
Material science, of all things. This particular lesson was called States of Matter. And when it came time for the children to retreat to individual work stations for some hands-on lab work, the room and the other children around them seized to exist. They had a task to complete, after all, and that was to apply a special solution to the dozen or so pebbles waiting for them in petri dishes.
They were then told by the instructor that, in a few days, they would begin to notice crystals forming on those little rocks. Soon, they’d have their own crystal gardens. Of course, they’re still kids; delayed gratification isn’t exactly their thing. And so began the second part of the lesson, which ended with the Sachem School District students making ice cream. Ice cream!
This is the type of pure magic that goes on almost every day at the Long Island Science Center in downtown Riverhead, and for an adult like myself, who had never stepped inside the center, it was a lesson on how a properly managed and sustainable nonprofit group with a purely altruistic mission can offer a huge public benefit to children and parents alike, not to mention the local school systems.
“A lot of the elementary schools don’t have science teachers, especially with all the recent cutbacks,” said the center’s executive director, Michelle Pelletier. So the schools use the science center for “enrichment” alternatives, she said. While that’s good for business, Ms. Pelletier can’t help but feel opportunities are being missed in the schools, as the younger kids seem to be the most engaged when learning how things work. That enthusiasm is plain to see during any day at the center.
After each lesson, the students — usually on a field trip or a weekend birthday party — are invited to roam the Exploratory Enrichment Center, an interactive, educational display play area. The rules for the kids are simple, and just the opposite of what they’re told to do at home: Touch everything. (Oh, and no running.) So the children will fan out to the interactive weather station or the dino-dig, to look for fossils. They’ll check out the snakes and Madagascar hissing cockroaches or just play with the magnets or building blocks. On Saturdays, this museum side of the center is open to the public, with admission just $5 a head.
Among Ms. Pelletier’s favorite and oft-repeated quotes from the children who visit the center are:
“I didn’t know that!”
“You guys like dinosaurs too?”
“Are you a scientist?”
“I’ve never been to a museum before.”
She’s hoping to hear more of these types of adorable phrases, as the center is planning a big move from its aging West Main Street building to the vacated West Marine storefront on East Main, closer to the Long Island Aquarium. The new space is planned to be much bigger, allowing the center to remain open to the public throughout the week, even when lessons are going on in the classrooms.
You’d be hard pressed to find a more worthy — yet often overlooked — organization in the town or county. Not only does the science center offer programs for children but high school interns build most of the hands-on exhibits. Teenagers from Riverhead, Mercy and other high schools also sit on its Board of Youth Trustees, charged with keeping the exhibits fresh and, presently, improving community outreach through social media.
The museum is in contract to purchase its new space, with real estate developers in contract to buy the current museum building. When the move is complete, the new center will feature more professionally built displays, including a state-of-the-art Leonardo da Vinci exhibit currently mothballed in the science center’s storage room for lack of space. The Board of Trustees, which includes two Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists, also envisions placing an emphasis on technological breakthroughs that are happening, and have happened, right here on Long Island.
It could even be a place where Intel Science Talent Search participants show off their work, I’m told.
By far the most popular exhibit in the museum right now is the dino-dig. Ms. Pelletier said, pointing to a square table covered in sand. The kids brush the sand away to unearth planted fossils that are explained on a chart nearby.
“I would love to have a big dino-dig that the kids could step into,” she said. “But this is our space. I wish it were bigger. But we’re working on it.”
To learn more about supporting the Long Island Science Center, visit 11 West Main St. in Riverhead or lisciencecenter.org.
Michael White is the editor of the Riverhead News-Review. He can be reached at mwhite@timesreview.com or (631) 298-3200, ext. 152.
The Long Island Science Center in Riverhead is hosting a series of movie nights, beginning Friday, Dec. 6 with the showing of “Flubber Friday.”
Popcorn and water is included and the showtime runs from 6 to 8:30 p.m. The cost is $25 per child and $20 for members. A registration form is available on the Science Center website.
Kids will have a chance to make their own flubber while watching the movie.
BARBARAELLEN KOCH FILE PHOTO | A young girl using a learning tool inside the Long Island Science Center.
The Long Island Science Center announced in a press release Wednesday its plans to move to a building with three times more space than its current location in downtown Riverhead.
Director Michelle Pelletier said the museum, which has spent the past 10 years at 11 West Main Street, recently completed the paperwork to purchase a 10,000 square foot building at 101 East Main Street.
In a phone call, Ms. Pelletier said the Science Center is aiming to complete the move within a year.
“There’s always planning and renovations that have to happen,” she said. “I would love for [the move] to happen sooner because it’s an exciting thing, but it all depends.”
The new location, which overlooks the Peconic River and once housed Bohack Supermarket, Edward Archers, and West Marine, “will provide significantly more space for exhibits, allow multiple school groups to visit at the same time, add classroom space, and provide areas for exhibit storage and fabrication,” Ms. Pelletier said.
The Science Center also said it plans to open a gift shop at its new location that will specialize in educational and kid-friendly toys, science kits and experiments, books, and DVDs.
“Expanding the Science Center will contribute to the revitalization of downtown, increase tourism to the area, and promote Riverhead in a positive and constructive manner,” Ms. Pelletier said.
The Long Island Science Center entered into a contract earlier this year to sell their property at 11 West Main Street to a developer who plans to build 48 upscale apartments overlooking the Peconic River and Grangerbel Park.
The project’s owner, Simshabs X, Inc, headed by Brooklyn developer Rafi Weiss, is seeking exemptions from sales tax on materials purchased for the construction, on mortgage recording tax and on real property taxes.
The Riverhead Industrial Development Agency will hold a public hearing on the request for IDA benefits for Blue River Estates on Monday, July 8, at 5 p.m. in Town Hall.
The IDA’s uniform tax exemption policy gives tax abatements only on the increased assessment that results from the project, so that the tax amount will never decrease from what it was beforehand.
The uniform policy starts at 50 percent for the first year, and decreases by five percent per year over 10 years, at which point the property owner pays full taxes.
The abatements only apply to school, town, county and fire district taxes.
In addition, the IDA has the discretion to deviate from that policy, as it has done on several recent projects, such as Long Island Aquarium and Hyatt Place Hotel, and the Summerwind Square apartments, both of which were give 100 percent exemptions for 10 years.
Blue River Estates calls for the demolition of the existing building at 11 West Main Street and replacing it with a proposed 70,000 square foot, 48-unit building apartment building with an indoor parking facility on the ground floor. The cost of the project is estimated at $9.65 million.
With Tim Gannon.
COURTESY PHOTO | Michelle Pelletier at her desk in downtown Riverhead’s L.I. Science Center.
Greenport’s Michelle Pelletier is the new face of the Long Island Science Center in downtown Riverhead.
The 25-year-old Cornell graduate, who succeeded founding director Delia Gibbs in July, said she’s excited to have joined an ever-expanding organization.
She’ll be looking to continue that trend as the new executive director.
“I want to expand our programming to fit middle and high school core curriculum standards,” Ms. Pelletier said.
The smart physics program collaboration with Riverhead High School — which has students learning physics in 9th grade rather than 12th — is just the beginning of big things in store for the center, she said.
“I was a high school teacher who taught biology, so I would like to expand to do more with high school students,” she said.
Center officials are already planning to form an advisory board to bring students into the center to help work on its business aspect, rather than just the museum side.
Community outreach is another area Ms. Pelletier hopes to bolster as the center’s new director.
Read more about Ms. Pelletier’s vision for Long Island Science Center in the Dec. 20 News-Review newspaper.
BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY COURTESY PHOTO | Delia Gibbs, left, will retire as director of the Long Island Science Center, which she helped found.
Long Island Science Center founding director Delia Gibbs announced her retirement Friday after more than a decade of service at the Riverhead center.
“We thank Mrs. Gibbs for her dedicated vision and service and are very proud of the contributions she has made,” reads a statement from the center’s Board of Trustees said of her retirement. “She will surely be missed, but we wish her all the best in her retirement,”
Ms. Gibbs has designed over 40 interactive educational programs for preschool through high school students, held teacher workshops, and offered internships to students between middle school and college.
“We prepare children to lead locally and compete globally,” Ms. Gibbs said. “We teach children to investigate science, to learn to think out of the box, to make choices, to problem solve and to question the world around them and offer solutions. This creates a body of knowledge that they can apply anywhere and it also builds an inner confidence and boosts their self esteem.”
Ms. Gibbs, a believer in hands-on learning, led countless interactive lab stations at the center during her tenure as director.
“This style of inquiry learning develops analytical thought processes and better decision making,” she said.
Read more in next week’s issue of the News-Review.
BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Julie Diperi, 3, of Center Moriches tries the Shoot the Moon game at the Long Island Science Center in Riverrhead, which now has Saturday hours.
Family Science Saturdays are a recent offering at the not-for profit Long Island Science Center, which previously opened only on Sundays and during school breaks.
The theme for this first Saturday program was transportation: visitors could build bumper cars, race balloon cars, build skimmer sailing hulls and airplanes out of paper, paper clips, straws and tape. These vehicles teach Newton’s laws of motion.
The center has been around for over 10 years, first in Shoreham on the first floor of the high school and now at 11 West Main Street in downtown Riverhead.
According to the center’s website at www.lisciencecenter.org, its goal is to encourage “enthusiasm and excitement for learning” and stimulate “discovery and creativity.”
Interactive exhibits and demonstrations, in-house and at schools, libraries and community centers, are intended to enhance the discovery process for visitors regardless of age or background.
According to center educator Judy Isbitiren, the center has five more educators like her teaching from pre-school to high school levels at the center and off site at schools across Long Island and New York, from Shelter Island to Staten Island.
After this Saturday, the center also will be open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, January 21, 28, February 4, 11 and for winter break when schools are closed. It will be open on Sundays for private parties and boy and for girl scout groups to earn badges.
