Science Rendezvous Kingston will take over Slush Puppie Place on Saturday

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Southeastern Ontario’s largest free family science fair is back on Saturday, May 11, and organizers are busy preparing Slush Puppie Place in Kingston to host thousands of parents and children.

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Science Rendezvous Kingston’s theme this year is ‘Innovate’, and there will be no shortage of displays of Canadian innovation inside and outside Kingston’s prominent downtown stadium.

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“We’re very excited,” Lynda Colgan, one of the event’s main organizers, told the Whig-Standard. “We have more stands than ever before.”

The Great Canadian Invention Circus will be the main attraction during the free, all-day event.

“They are children’s performers who, through juggling and other types of circus acts, teach us about the unique things Canadians have invented – everything from basketball to the dishwasher and the Robertson screw,” Colgan said. “It’s a real circus performance and so much fun, the way they do it. We are very happy to have them.”

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Science Rendezvous continues its partnership again this year with Research Casting International, a Trenton-based organization that works with museums and institutions around the world to mount fossils and skeletons and cast replicas. Research Casting will provide a full-size replica skeleton of an orca or killer whale.

“There will be other artifacts about whales and the importance of the orca, which are known as the wolves of the ocean because they live in groups and hunt in packs, just like wolves do,” Colgan said.

From the human body and Leonardo DaVinci’s early prototypes to information about how drones are being used in geography to map Canadian landscapes, there are “so many things happening this year.”

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The event will also once again host a ‘sensory friendly zone’ on an upper level of Slush Puppie Place for neurodiverse children, offering a calmer Science Rendezvous experience.

“They can still see the entire event from the 300 level (concourse) and have their own mini Science Rendezvous,” Colgan explains. “There are robots, a dinosaur grave with little fossils that kids can dig up and learn about, a wave tank. There’s a lot going on there.”

A ‘parent café’ feature will allow parents to sit and have coffee while speaking to experts from the Limestone District School Board, the Maltby Center and local learning disability associations, who will be on hand to share resources and talk about neurodiversity.

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“This way, parents can be assured that their children are meaningfully involved and have an event that is also especially dedicated to them.”

In 2023, more than 5,300 people attended the event, which was facilitated by 430 volunteers. Last year, Science Rendezvous won the Steam Green award from its national parent organization, in recognition of some of the outstanding environmental and cultural projects the Science Rendezvous Kingston crew produced that year.

This year’s event will take place on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, visit www.queensu.ca/science-rendezvous.

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