My 10 year old son and I went on Wednesday and we had a great time. To quote him, "it's not a big museum but it has a lot of cool stuff in it!" Thank you to the staff and volunteers.

Great news!! It was a shame that NASA Ames ruined their own awesome museum and turned it into just a boring gift shop. A lot of families would visit a new museum (even if for a small entry fee) if it brought back the cool moon rocks and NASA space modules for people to see !!

Dear Toms,
The much bigger NASA AMES museum used to be a place where local educators were taken on events like the Wright Brothers 'first flight' centennial teacher training weekends. Unfortunately - the national government needs to have Local Education Governments, school districts like MVWSD, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, MVLA etc., intensely use these education resources. - and - Local districts' administrators often 'drop out'.

In Oakland - the federally supported Chabot Space and Science Center (Rep. Ron Dellums earmark) was so underutilized when first built that the Oakland school district superintendent had to (as I understand) order his principals to utilize this 'in the backyard' excellent science center. STEM unused is STEM money wasted.

The NGSS (ed-talk for the new science curriculum in CA and many states) both allows and encourages STEM direct involvement, not just 'textbook, internet' learning opportunities. Parents - petition your school district leaders (superintendents, trustees, principals) to get 'visit and USE STEM sites' as local resources. Make it a district board policy! In writing - BP####.

retired STEM teacher