Kids at the 2015 Little Shop of Physics Open House launch giant fog rings on the west lawn. Credit: Adam Pearlstein/Little Shop of Physics
Little Shop of Physics, Colorado State University’s traveling, hands-on science education program, is hosting its 25th annual Open House, Saturday, Feb. 27, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Lory Student Center.
The daylong, free public event will feature more than 300 family-friendly, interactive exhibits and experiments. In celebration of Little Shop’s quarter-century birthday, this year’s event will host Little Shop alumni, as well as other out-of-town guests.
Joining the fun will be the Ithaca Physics Bus of Cornell University, and Science Circus of Norway, both traveling science education exhibits. And the Lakota Star Lab, from Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, will bring their inflatable star lab and give presentations melding traditional Lakota star knowledge with modern astronomy.
Sharing the Little Shop love
Among the dozens of alumni attending are couples who met at Little Shop. Which goes to show that a shared loved of science can lead to plain old love.
Little Shop/CSU alumni Kristen Dean, Environmental Learning Center program coordinator in the Warner College of Natural Resources, and Kirk Wilkinson, who works at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, will wed in October. In a “truly nerdy” start to a relationship, Dean and Wilkinson met in 2011 when they were both Little Shop student workers. Dean was a biology major and graduated in 2011, and Wilkinson studied history and anthropology and graduated in 2012.
The festivities include a special dinner for Little Shop alumni.
Maps, schedules and more information about the 25th annual Little Shop of Physics Open House are available here.
