Monday may be more widely known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but the Carnegie Science Center and Duquesne Light are partnering to make January 16th "Duquesne Light Conservation Day." The day of free activities was born from suggestions made by parents and visitors.
Participants will have the opportunity to engage in environmentally-themed programming for free at the Science Center from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The day features free parking, free admission to the Science Center and SportsWorks, free access to an Omnimax film and two theater shows.
"It gives us a day to focus on sustainable technologies and what science is telling us now about how we can better serve the resources of the Earth," said Ronald Baillie, Science Center Co-Director.
Baillie says that the main concentration will be on water conservation; something that is especially relevant to Western Pennsylvania. The Science Center wants to educate people of all ages about their watershed address, where run-off and rainwater goes, as well as what dangers poluted runoff poses to the rivers in the area.
The Omnimax film, "Grand Canyon Adventure," will highlight the importance of healthy and plentiful amounts of the resource. "[The film] really focuses in on the tremendous water crisis that's right now a part of the southwestern United States but it also gives us a chance to reflect on how blessed we are really in this region with water and how as we look to the future it's going to become very important for Western Pennsylvania because it's going to have a resource that many other places may not."
Conservation Day is not to be confused with Earth Day, and Baillie says that even though the main goal of the two days is similar, they differ in the way education is approached. "At Earth Day there's so much activity that goes on it's hard to take advantage of all of it. This gives us a day to focus in on particularly the way the Science Center looks at it, and for us, it's very much about the basic science involved so we're going to be talking a lot about chemistry, we're talking a lot about water and pollutants and material science."
Baillie adds that it is hard to experience all of what the Science Center has to offer in one day, so he encourages first time visitors to return and take advantage of the entire Center. For more information on the programming, visit the Carnegie Science Center's website.
