Adventure in Science, Inc. was started in 1973 by the late Dr. Robert Nash in the basement of his home with 8 neighborhood kids.  Dr. Nash, a former NASA Goddard scientist who had been a professor at the University of Virginia’s Materials Science Department early in his career, had recognized that his own children were not always learning about the fun side of science in school, and decided to start a hands-on program to help change that.  For the next seven years, Dr. Nash did exactly that working out of the basement in his home on Saturday mornings during the school year.  His topics ranged from astronomy to materials science to simple machines.

 

By 1980, the program had outgrown his basement.  A larger facility was necessary to accommodate the interest for local children.  Through conversations with Dr. Tom Charlton at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which was then known as the National Bureau of Standards, Adventure in Science moved to the NIST Gaithersburg campus on Saturday mornings.  Dr. Charlton, with help from Dr. Sam Kramer, initially brought 30 kids into the program a year.  Through the auspices of these two site managers, they solicited both the interest and the support of the Dr. John Lyons, who later became the NIST director.  This support from NIST directors has continued through the present director, Dr. Patrick Gallagher.  The NIST program has been run continuously ever since with a succession of site managers, starting with Dr. Robert Shull, Dr. Harry Hertz, Dr. Roger Martin, and Dr. Norm ??? upon the retirement of Dr. Charlton in 1985), and adding Dr. Richard Steiner, Dr. Kang Lee, Dr. Cindi Dennis, and Dr. Chandler Becker (but losing Dr. Martin and Dr. ??? upon retirement) with the growth of the program to handle 70 kids in the intervening years.

 

In 1982, the growing program expanded yet again to the Bechtel Corporation’s site on Shady Grove Road and the Hewlett Packard site off Choke Cherry Road.  For the next 18 years (until the closing of the Bechtel site), Frank Roddy handled 20-25 kids on Saturday mornings.  For the next 9 years (until the closing of the HP site), Dr. Jerry Schaefer brought 10-11 kids per year on to the HP site.

 

In 1985, Adventure in Science expanded to a fourth site at the COMSAT facility in Germantown, MD, where it handled 8-10 year olds until the closing of the COMSAT facility in 2007.  Originally run by ???, COMSAT was handled for the last 3 years by Subodh Manicka.

 

In 1993, Dr. Ed Max and Dr. Peter Kellman of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) opened a site for 8-10 year olds (plus a few 11-14 year olds with a strong interest in biology).  Still going strong, this site utilizes their connection within NIH, so that many of the topics are taught by specialists there, leading to some high unusual learning experiences not found outside of medical school.

 

For three years starting in 1995, Yanaj Feith opened a satellite site for Adventure in Science at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Bethesda, MD which ran on Sunday mornings.

 

Starting in 1998 and 1999 respectively, two additional sites were started in Fort Detrick in Frederick, MD and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.  These were successfully run by ??? and Dr. Larry Raskin until September 11, 2001, when heightened security measures forced these sites to close.

 

These sites were temporarily moved to a satellite site on the NIST campus, called NIST North, until other arrangements could be made.  It took two years, but in 2003, Dr. Raj Rajavahan started the Lockheed Martin site.  (Connections with NIST didn’t hurt, as the NIST director Dr. Arden Bemmett knew the previous CEO of Lockheed Norm Augistine), but Dr. Rajavan’s getting security involved helped alleviate many of the security concerns for Saturday morning activities.

 

In 2008, Dr. Ranchuri Sudarsan opened the Urbana Middle School site for 8-10 year olds, through the cooperation of Urbnana Public Schools, and most especially the principal of Urbana Middle School.

 

Adventure in Science has also expanded out of Montgomery County, MD into Baltimore City (Coppin State) through Tanisha English from 1990-2002, and Baltimore County (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) from 1991-2007 through the 4H program staff.  In 1988, another Adventure in Science site was started at Michigan State University.