Virginia Tech Science Festival 2024
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Virginia Tech Science Festival
Saturday, November 2, 2024
10 AM - 3 PM
Moss Arts Center | Newman Library
Free and open to the public
Nutshell Games at 4:30 p.m.
The Virginia Tech Science Festival is a Saturday celebration of science as a way of knowing. It started in 2014 with the intention of inspiring the audience by seeing what happens at Virginia Tech and sharing it with the community.
Based on the idea that “science is bigger than you think,” the festival features various disciplines that use data to come to conclusions. Science is … life, process, safety, robotics, the earth, and well-being. Science is on the road and in the arts.
This expo-style, family-friendly event reaches 2,000 to 5,000 visitors, including families, school field trips, and Virginia Tech students. Festival guests participate in various hands-on activities. They see engaging demonstrations and talk one-on-one with practicing scientists at 50+ exhibits.
At the 2024 Virginia Tech Science Festival, we collaborated with the Virginia Tech Department of English for a poetry contest to celebrate our wondrous planet with odes. We proudly present our winners.
Elementary category winner
Ode to Wonder
By Marcus Shippee, third grade
Something that is not uncovered yet
Something that is missing
Imagination
So much that you can think of
Create
And have more wonders about it
You do the act of wondering in your head
But also with your limbs
When I wonder
I’m at that place
Investigating
Wonder feels like a mystery
that needs to be uncovered
Wonder makes me want to push through
Whatever comes my way
Adult category winner
DREAMS FROM THE SEAFLOOR An Ode to the Secret Ocean
By Caroline Foltz
Lo! Those liquid mines of silver-flicker, Pooling thick beneath the ocean rot
With glittery strings of oiled liquor
And the brittle of dreams long forgot.
Here swells a sunken wave
Of ancient wind through tidal veins,
Receding deep into its watery grave
To the blackened heart of mythos’ plains.
Here breathes a primordial bath,
The gleaming iris of crystalline Styx
Where Genesis whispers of bated wrath
Like flood cresting o’er a pupil eclipsed.
Here seeps the soft histories, those
Fantasies bloomed from wrinkled sponge
Whose formless threads of floating ambrose Spin on languid midnight tongues.
Wherein slow liquid this artery slips
Of an earth encircled, subcutaneous
Flows a current flush for little podded ships
To enlight the mystery of foreign depths.
Exhibit List
The festival is a collaborative effort across most of Virginia Tech’s colleges, and research institutes, as well as many community members. It is directed by the Center for Educational Networks and Impacts, in collaboration with the Virginia Tech Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, University Libraries, the College Access Collaborative, and Virginia Cooperative Extension. With support from partners, the festival funds buses for school field trips from area schools and across the state.
Follow the Virginia Tech Science Festival on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. Use #VTSciFest and #virginiatechsciencefestival when images are shared on these platforms and Instagram.
Contact Phyllis Newbill for ways to join.
Sponsors
Platinum
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Fralin Life Sciences Institute
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences
University Libraries
Friend
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine