Spark Curiosity, Imagination & Optimism during National Engineering Week with these Family Fun Activities    

The Cradle of Aviation is celebrating National Engineering Week during the February school break (2/16-2/24) to acknowledge the significant contributions engineers have made to improving lives and to motivate tomorrow’s innovators with an introduction to STEM skills. With 2.4mm STEM jobs to be filled, the museum has planned an engaging week of activities to stimulate imaginations with one-of-a kind experiences.  Activities planned include new space exhibits highlighting the past and future of space exploration, new movies & planetarium shows, free engineering activities, and mini-camps for Boy Scouts and Minecraft Builders. Visit www.cradleofaviation.org/feb to plan your adventure. 

Highlights include: 

  • Visit a Lunar Module – an engineering triumph that Long Island Grumman Engineers designed, built and tested; safely sending astronauts to the moon. Introduce your family to the greatest engineering story of our time during this 50th Anniversary Apollo year. Free with Museum Admission 
  • Become an Engineer for Mars as you experience constructing your own mini-foam Mars Rover or design and build a Mars habitat with coffee stirrers and marshmallows. Free with Museum admission. M-Fri 12-4pm 
  • See Dream Big on the big screen in our immersive Dome Theater. Witness how ordinary people found ways to defy the impossible, changing the world and their own lives in the process, in this award-winning documentary about the field of engineering. Showing Daily $9 for Adults; $8 for Seniors/Child 
  • Experience Music & Astronomy, satisfy the senses as you sit back and go on a visual and musical journey of  NASA missions and the galaxy in our immersive Dome Theater. Students from Adelphi University will be playing live music, while the beauty of the universe and humanity’s desire to explore it is illustrated on the big screen. Thursday, February 21st 7-9pm $15 for Adults; $12 for Senior/Child 
  • Respect the Game and attend the popular 80s Arcade and Karaoke Night. Did you know that it was Long Island Physicist William Higinbotham who invented and built with a lab engineer, the first video game, Tennis for Two, at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958?  Saturday, February 23, 7-11pm $15 advance tickets, $20 at the door 

National Engineers Week (Feb 17-23rd) was founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951, and is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (February 21, 2019) helps focus a growing movement to inspire girls’ futures so they learn they have a place in engineering a better world. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects employment growth for these workers, with nearly 140,000 new jobs expected for engineers over the 2016–26 decade. And in 2016, engineers had a median annual wage of $91,010—more than twice the median wage for all workers.

The Cradle of Aviation Museum and Education Center is home to over 75 planes and spacecraft representing over 100 years of aviation history and Long Island’s only Giant Screen Dome Theater.  Currently, the museum is celebrating  “Countdown to Apollo at 50” sponsored by the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, showcasing Long Island and Grumman’s significant role in the Apollo program. The Museum was recently recognized and listed on New York State’s National Register of Historic Places as a significant part of American history. The museum is located on Museum Row, Charles Lindbergh Blvd., in East Garden City. 

For more information call (516) 572-4111 or visit www.cradleofaviation.org.