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Description
Celebrate our amazing planet during DOE Spring Recess with Earth Rocks! — a week-long festival of hands-on exploration and discovery at Brooklyn Children’s Museum.
Throughout the week, activities are organized around three Earth-themed adventures:
🌱 Soil, Plants, and Food
Discover the fascinating world of plants and sustainable food systems through interactive workshops and demonstrations. Explore plant-based dyes, learn about hydroponic farming with Mi Oh My Farms, and pot your own scented plants with Brooklyn Botanic Garden educators to take home and nurture.
♻️ Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
Transform trash into treasure through hands-on recycling and upcycling activities! Join Bloom Again Brooklyn for flower reuse workshops, learn about composting with Cues, participate in Friends of Brower Park’s upcycling projects, and discover how worms recycle food scraps into valuable soil with the Department of Sanitation.
🐞 Animals and Insects
Get up close with fascinating creatures during our live animal programming! Meet tarantulas and touch blue caterpillars during bug encounters with entomologist Dr. Aaron Rodriques, dance to a high-energy bug-fact-filled show by Ants on a Log, and join our stuffed animal care station where kids can bring their favorite fuzzy friend for a “check-up” using medical tools like an stethoscope, otoscope, and thermometer.
🔋 All Week: What’s the Juice? — STEM Project
Visit our Nature’s Engineers STEM makerspace to experiment with sustainable energy! Did you know you can use natural objects like potatoes to make a battery? Build your own food-powered battery and test how many potatoes are needed to light a bulb. Can you find a fruit that works even better?
Additional highlights throughout the week include animal yoga with Fit N Play Mama, oyster reef exploration with Billion Oyster Project, healthy eating workshops and rooftop gardening activities with Magnolia Tree Earth Center, and more.
Drop by during DOE Recess and discover why Earth Rocks! – the perfect spring break adventure for curious young minds!
Wednesday 4/16 schedule:
Pollinator Puppets
🕒 10:30 am – 11:00 am
Join Esther Crow and her puppet, Bernie the bee, and learn about how bees, bats and butterflies pollinate many of the fruits and vegetables we eat, and how important they are to maintaining healthy ecosystems world-wide. Participants get to create their own puppets inspired by these creatures!
Animal Veterinary?
🕒 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Learn how to use tools such as a stethoscope, otoscope, and thermometer to perform a check-up on a fuzzy animal friend at our animal care station.
The Nature of Music: Chordophones
🕒 11:00 am – 11:30 am, 2:45 pm – 3:15 pm
In this workshop led by musician, Nedelka Prescod, create your own kid-friendly guitar from recycled and household items. Listen to and learn music from iconic singer/songwriters whose songs spoke of humanity and caring for the environment, then create your own original tunes!
Create your own Flower Arrangement
🕒 11:00 am – 11:45 am
Join Bloom Again Brooklyn for a flower upcycling workshop, repurposing donated flowers to create beautiful floral arrangements to take home.
Save The Earth
🕒 11:30 am – 12:00 pm, 2:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Join Cues for a demonstration & take-home scavenger hunt of “how to save your garbage from the garbage”- a hands-on lesson of the “4 Rs” (reuse, repair, remake, recycle). There will be various bags of things destined for the landfill, which kids can help save from polluting the Earth.
Animal Encounters
🕒 12:00 pm – 12:30 pm, 3:30 pm – 4:00 pm
Say hello to BCM’s live animals at this program led by our expert animal maintainer and educator, Sarah! Get a personal introduction to some of BCM’s most fascinating creatures, and explore native and non-native animals you might find in your own backyard!
Climate Rock Puppet Party!
🕒 2:00 pm – 2:45 pm
Join award-winning NYC Kindie climate-rocker and puppeteer, Esther Crow, and her 11-yr-old son, Vincent, as they teach climate and sustainability lessons to kids through song, dance and chants! This show empowers kids with the knowledge and confidence to be leaders of social/climate justice actions, and to understand the importance of the natural world around them.
ColorLab Art Studio
Earth Homes
🕒 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Create an Earth Home sculpture inspired by artist Beverly Buchanan in BCM’s art studio. Use materials like clay, sticks, rocks, and other natural materials to create your own small home structure.
Nature’s Engineers STEM Makerspace
What’s the Juice?
🕒 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Join us in Nature’s Engineers as we build our own food-powered battery and discover the amazing science of electricity.
