MSF Trivia

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Wednesday, March 19th | 6:30pm-8:00pm

Seasons (Downstairs) - 427 Main Street, Bangor

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Join fellow trivia players for a night of science trivia created especially for the Maine Science Festival! This is a don't-miss night of fun! 

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Please note! If you'd like to order food, please come at 6:00 so you don't miss out on any questions!

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Event type: trivia

Moderator: Kate Dickerson, Maine Discovery Museum

Recommended Audience: high school and up

Science on Tap presents: Clear Ears, Full Heart, Can’t Lose

How Music and Heart Health Help Heal and Shape the Brain

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Thursday, March 21st | 6:30pm-8:00pm

Nocturnem Draft Haus, 56 Main Street, Bangor

 

Join us for an evening learning about the brain. Brian Harris, Founder & CEO of MedRhythms, will discuss how MedRhythms uses music as a therapeutic tool for brain recovery from strokes and other conditions. Fayeza Ahmed, Associate Professor of psychology at the University of Maine, will share insights from her research on the connection between heart health and the brain.

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Event type: Forum

Presenters: Brian Harris, MedRhythms, Fayeza Ahmed, University of Maine

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​Science on Tap is sponsored by The Jackson Laboratory

Field Trip Day​ (2025 FTD is full)

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Friday, March 21st | 9:30am-12:30pm

Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

 

Our Field Trip Day is for 7th & 8th grade students from schools in Maine, with the day’s programming specifically designed for this age group.

 

These events are limited to those schools that sign up in the preceding months. If you are interested in learning more about the 2026 Maine Science Festival Field Trip Day or would like to be notified when sign-ups are open, please send an email to schools@mainesciencefestival.org. The Field Trip Day is provided free of charge to the schools that attend.

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2025 FTD is FULL.​

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Field Trip Day is presented by the

Maine Discovery Museum!

 

Teen Tech Night

Presented by Project>Login

 

Friday, March 21st | 4:30 pm-7:00pm

Maine Discovery Museum, 74 Main Street, Bangor

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Hey students in grades 6-10 - are you ready to explore the exciting world of computers and information technology? Join us for Teen Tech Night, where you can learn, share, collaborate, and delve into cutting-edge software and web-based tools.

 

This year's workshops will feature a range of captivating sessions designed to spark your curiosity and creativity like robotics, cyber security and more!

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Participants, please remember to bring your own laptop to this event. If you do not have access to a laptop, please email Shelby Bryant at shelby@educatemaine.org.

Teen Tech Night is a drop-off event, and a delicious pizza dinner will be provided at 6 pm for all participants. Don't miss out on this opportunity for maximum engagement and hands-on learning!

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Register for Teen Tech Night

 

Event type: workshops for grades 6-10, hands-on activities, sessions

Audience: middle and early high schoolers

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Exploration Stations:

Engage, Examine, Experiment

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Saturday, March 22nd | 9am - 4pm

Cross Insurance Center Ballroom, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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Roll up your sleeves and learn through various hands-on activities from scientists and practitioners around the state. Make sure to stop in and visit each activity and discover that science is everywhere!

Activities include:

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• 1 Earth Composting  Composting

• BASWG / Town of Orono  Stormwater Model 

• Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences  Plankton Power: Build, Race, and Explore the Tiny Creatures of the Ocean!

• General Dynamics Bath Iron Works  Shipbuilding

• Girl Scouts of Maine  Math In Nature

• Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust  Tree ID activity and Mystery Box

• IDEXX  The Colors of IDEXX

• Maine Maritime Academy 

• MDI Biological Lab  Regeneration and Stem Cells: A Science Mystery to Crack

• Owls Head Transportation Museum  OHTM's Lego Derby Race Track 

• Rho Chi Society Chapter - Husson University  The Science of Pharmacy

• Southern Maine Community College  It's a shore thing; exploring Maine's intertidal zone

• The Challenger Learning Center of Maine   Hands on STEM with Challenger Maine

• Tyler Technologies and the University of Maine Maine App Challenge: Start Building Today!

• UMaine Space/UMaine AI  UMaine Space

• University of Maine - Advanced Structures and Composites Center  Introduction to Textiles

• University of Maine at Fort Kent  The Photosynthesis-Climate Connection

• University of Maine Cooperative Extension: 4-H  Flora and Fauna of Maine (marine & terrestrial)

• University of Maine Society of Physics Students  Hands-on physics activities!

• University of Southern Maine - STEM Outreach  LEGO SPIKE Coding

• USGS Maine Coop Fish and Wildlife / University of Maine Dept of Wildlife, Fisheries and Conservation Biology Maine's Fish and Wildlife

• Versant Power Astronomy Center

• Versant Power  Electrical Safety

• Within the Whale  Whale Anatomy

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Event type: Hands-on

Recommended Audience: all ages

Maine Mobile BIOLAB

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Saturday, March 23rd | 9am-4pm

Upper parking lot, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

 

Senses and Perception

• Discover the fascinating science behind how we perceive the world in this immersive exhibit. Test whether you’re a supertaster and explore how compounds can alter taste. Uncover the connection between smell and memory as scents transport you to the past.

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• Challenge your vision with mind-bending illusions and experience the McGurk Effect, where sight and sound combine to change what you hear. Visualize sound waves on an oscilloscope and see how vibrations create the sounds we hear.

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• Finally, explore touch by experimenting with temperature perception and experiencing the "Pinocchio Effect," where it feels like your nose is expanding or shrinking. This hands-on exhibit reveals how your senses work together to shape your reality.

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BIOLAB is located in the upper parking lot at CIC.

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Event type: hands-on

Presenters: Educate Maine

​Recommended Audience: all ages

Scrollathon​

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Saturday, March 22nd | 9am - 4pm

Meeting Rooms 3&4, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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The Maine Discovery Museum is thrilled to host Steven and William Ladd’s National Scrollathon®! The Ladd brothers, renowned artists with work in major museums worldwide, bring their collaborative art project to Maine as part of the 10th Maine Science Festival.

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Join us for one of four Scrollathon sessions, where you'll create your own fabric scroll to keep before contributing to a larger collaborative piece. This artwork will be permanently displayed at the museum, with a high-quality photograph featured in Washington, D.C., for America’s 250th birthday in 2026. Be part of this nationwide celebration of creativity and unity!

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We will be running 4 sessions and highly recommend that you sign up to guarantee a spot.

There are 25 spots per session. S

Sessions run at 9am, 11am, 1pm, and 3pm

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Click here to sign up for a session!

​​You must check in/arrive five minutes before the session starts

or your spot will go to those on the wait-list

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Event type: Hands-on activities/art exhibit

Recommended Audience: all ages

Immersive Audio

Saturday, March 22nd

All day drop-in event

Meeting Room D, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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Explore the cutting-edge world of immersive audio!  In this exhibit you will experience a 3D sound field from a twelve loudspeaker, 7.1.4 immersive sound system.  Listen to immersive musical examples, film clips, and soundscapes, and learn about Dolby Atmos, Spatial Audio, surround sound, and more.

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Event type: Workshop

Presenter: Eric Ferguson, Husson University

Recommended Audience: all ages​​

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​Immersive Audio sponsored by Maine Community College System

Maine Invention Convention

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Saturday, March 23rd | 10 AM - 2 PM

Prefunction Area, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

The MIC Awards Ceremony will take place in Meeting Room 5 at 1:45pm

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The Maine Invention Convention (a program of the Maine Discovery Museum) is a statewide competition that promotes innovative problem-solving and inventing by Maine middle school students. Students work with their peers and teachers to identify and solve problems using the Innovation Engineering process. At this event, students from each participating school compete for the top invention awards and for the chance to represent Maine at the National Invention Convention at The Henry Ford Museum in June.

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Event type: Poster Session

Moderator: Lia Davido-DaSilva, Maine Discovery Museum

Recommended Audience: all ages

AORTA: Human Anatomy and Medicine​

Saturday, March 22nd | TWO SESSIONS 10-11:30am & 12:30-2pm

Meeting Room A, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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The University of New England, College of Osteopathic Medicine’s AORTA Program is offering a hands-on anatomy lab experience! A short introduction of the AORTA program, UNECOM, and body donation will be provided at the beginning of the session. Participants will rotate through 3 stations exploring the body’s organ systems, healthy vs. unhealthy tissues, and surgical interventions. We utilize isolated organs from human body donors who have gifted themselves to medical education. The workshop leaders will do their best to involve participants as much as possible, as your questions and preferences direct the progression of the session.

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Event type: Workshop

Presenter: Tyler H. Redway, Assistant Professor of Anatomy, AOTRA Program, University of New England

Recommended Audience: all ages

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We will be running 2 sessions and highly recommend that you sign up to guarantee a spot.

There are 30 spots per session

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Click here to sign up for Session One (10am)

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Click here to sign up for Session Two (12:30pm)

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You must check in/arrive five minutes before the session starts

or your spot will go to those on the wait-list

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AORTA is sponsored by Bioscience Association of Maine

Power Play: Exploring Muscle Strength with Biomechanics​

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Saturday, March 22nd | 10am - 11am

Meeting Rooms 1&2, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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Demonstrating the use of biomechanics equipment to show muscular power and discuss why having powerful muscles is important for both athletes and general populations.​

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Event type: Hands-on activities/art exhibit

Presenter: Jonathan Houck, Husson University

Recommended Audience: all ages

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Power Play is sponsored by Epstein Properties

Exploring Light Pollution

Saturday, March 22nd | 11:00am-12:00pm

Meeting Room B, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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Participants take a deep dive into the growing issue of light pollution! This workshop starts with a discussion of what light pollution is and how it affects humans and the natural world, and culminates in an engineering design challenge to create a design for a model streetlight that minimizes light pollution, while still allowing for safe lighting for streets and neighborhoods.

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Event type: Workshop

Presenter: Sarah Raymond-Boyan, The Challenger Learning Center of Maine

Recommended Audience: all ages

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Exploring Light Pollution is sponsored by Colby College

Immersive Audio: Historical Overview, Essential Terminology, and an

Introduction to Dolby Atmos

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Saturday, March 22nd | 11:30am-12:30pm

Meeting Room C, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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In this presentation, the exciting world of immersive audio will be introduced, including technologies such as surround sound, immersive audio, spatial audio, ambisonics, and binaural audio.  The talk will investigate historical uses of immersive in film and music production, and special attention will be paid to Dolby Atmos and its current dominance as the immersive format of choice.

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Event type: Talk

Presenter: Eric Ferguson, Husson University

Recommended Audience: all ages​​

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Worlds Beyond Our Sun: Exploring the Architecture and Evolution of Alien Planetary Systems

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Saturday, March 22nd | 1:30-2:30pm

Meeting Rooms 1&2, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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A general overview of what we know about multiplanetary systems outside our solar system and how we connect that information to our own past.

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Event type: Talk

Presenter: Nikita Saini, University of Maine

Recommended Audience: middle school and up

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Worlds Beyond Our Sun is sponsored by Versant Power

Fish Printing - freshwater fishes of Maine

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Saturday, March 22nd | 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Meeting Room B, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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Learn about common freshwater fishes and the art of gyotaku. Paper will be available or bring cotton (shirt/sheet/fabric) to print on.

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Event type: Workshop

Presenter: Christina Murphy, University of Maine Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology / USGS Coop Fish and Wildlife Research Unit / American Fisheries Society University of Maine Student Subunit

Recommended Audience: all ages​​​​

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This session can accommodate 25 participants.

We highly recommend you sign up to guarantee your spot.

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Click here to sign up!​​

You must check in/arrive five minutes before the session starts

or your spot will go to those on the wait-list

Immersive Audio: Auditory Localization, Psychoacoustics, & Binaural Audio

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Saturday, March 22nd | 2:45pm-3:45pm

Meeting Room C, Cross Insurance Center, 515 Main Street, Bangor

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It's amazing that despite only having two ears, humans can localize sound from all directions.  Wouldn’t it be exciting to watch a movie, listen to music, or play a video game and hear sound in front, behind, and above you?  In this presentation, the methods used by the human auditory system to localize sound will be examined.  Binaural audio will also be introduced, and its use in new technologies such as Dolby Atmos, Apple Spatial Audio, and immersive audio will be discussed.

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Event type: Workshop

Presenter: Eric Ferguson, Husson University

Recommended Audience: all ages​​

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​5 Minute Genius™ - 2025 MSF Headliner

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Saturday, March 22, 2025 | 7:00pm

Gracie Theatre, 180 College Circle, Bangor

 

5 Minute Genius™ features short, sharp talks by some of Maine’s finest scientists with 5 minutes per talk, plus 5 minutes for questions. Presenting a sprint through some of the most remarkable, cutting-edge science in Maine - you will feel like a genius in no time!  Want more? Stick around for a reception after the event in the lobby.

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Presenters: 

• Brian Beal, Downeast Institute

• Damian Brady, University of Maine Darling's Marine Center

• Kortney Collum, College of the Atlantic

• Cory Johnson, MDI Biological Laboratory

• Asheesh Lanba, University of Southern Maine

• Danielle Levesque, University of Maine

• Chuck Lubelczyk, MaineHealth Institute for Research

• Kristen O'Connell, The Jackson Laboratory

• Mac Stetzer, University of Maine

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Event type: Presentation

Moderator: Kate Dickerson, Maine Discovery Museum

Recommended Audience: high school and up

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5 Minute Genius™ is a hugely popular event.

We highly recommend you sign up to ensure your seat

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Click here to reserve your seat!​​

You must check in/arrive five minutes before

or your spot will go to those on the wait-list

 

5 Minute Genius™ is sponsored by Maine Technology Institute

Downtown Bangor Scavenger Hunt​​​

 

Sunday, March 23rd | 11am-1pm

Maine Discovery Museum​

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A downtown science scavenger hunt! Pick up your sheet/ information at the Briar Patch, and go find the science the clues lead you to. Once done, return your signed slip to the Briar Patch. The top finisher receives a prize, and all who finish will be entered into a drawing for a goodie bag. The hunt has to be completed between 11 am -1 pm.

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Audience: all ages

Invisible Lines, Tangible Impacts: The Anthropology of Borders​

 

Sunday, March 23rd | 11:30am-12:45pm

PTC's Dramatic Academy, 51 Main St., Bangor

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Professor Dan Sandweiss will be presenting on the historic and archaeological border situation in Peru and Obie Casperson will be presenting her research on Cyprus' green line.

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Event type: Panel 

Presenter: Dan Sandweiss, University of Maine & Obie Casperson, Undergraduate student at the University of Maine

Moderator: Kate Dickerson, Maine Discovery Museum

Recommended Audience: high school and up

PFAS and Agriculture

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Sunday, March 23rd | 1:00pm-2:00pm

PTC's Dramatic Academy, 51 Main St., Bangor

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In this session, we will give an introduction to PFAS and how it came to be introduced in some agricultural soils in Maine. We will also share the results of a recent research project where we worked with a commercial farm that had contaminated soils to test PFAS uptake into vegetables. Co-presenters will include UMaine researchers, graduate students, and farmers.

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Event type: Panel 

Presenter: Rachel Schattman, University of Maine; Alexandra Scearce, University of Maine; Susan Hunter, Hunter Farm, Unity

Moderator: Kate Dickerson, Maine Discovery Museum

Recommended Audience: high school and up