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The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) is diving headfirst into Climate Week NYC with several hands-on activities aimed at educating visitors about the effects of climate change and, more importantly, ways they can work together to prevent it.
The science center, located within Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Corona, is hosting a Queens Climate Expo with Queens Borough President Donovan Richards today from 2-5 p.m., culminating the week of activities with family-friendly workshops and encounters with creatures from the Alley Pond Environmental Center.
Guests can RSVP for the event here.
The expo marks five years since Hurricane Ida ravaged NYSCI and its neighboring communities. The historic storm brought more than one million gallons of water into the science center from overflowing sewage drains, forcing it to close for nearly a year.
Throughout the week, NYSCI hosted interactive learning exhibits focused on the everyday impacts of climate change, inviting participants to share their own first-hand experiences with ongoing issues their communities face, such as flooding and power outages.
Through experiments and critical-thinking activities, NYSCI explored the science behind why extreme weather is becoming more common, whether it be Earth’s temperature rising, its atmosphere eroding from pollutants or extensive deforestation that destroys 10 million hectares — 25 million acres — of forests per year.
Michaela Labriole, senior director of strategic education initiatives at NYSCI, said the center has used its resources to approach climate change for over 15 years. She said it’s important NYSCI play an educational role in these critical issues to work toward solutions.
“Now, more than ever, museums are being seen as spaces that generate conversation,” Labriole said. “There’s such intentionality with how these topics are being presented.”
NYSCI partners with many city agencies and universities to create its exhibits, including the departments of environmental protection, sanitation, and parks and recreation. In-house designers then work to develop technology for the exhibits to ensure it aligns with the NYSCI experience.
City Works, one of the science center’s interactive exhibits, shows visitors how different parts of the city — many that residents don’t often think about — operate behind-the-scenes. This includes transportation, water, sanitation, construction and urban development.
Visitors learn how everyday activities, such as doing laundry or taking a shower, can overload underground water passages that cause flooding during heavy rainfall, or how different types of buildings and facilities strain the power grid.
They can even design their own cities and parks, receiving feedback in real time about how their choices impact energy efficiency, water drainage and carbon emissions.
“I love that City Works invites people to imagine the world they want to live in,” Labriole said. “That’s how action happens.”
Visitors can also view an interactive map to see how global warming is affecting sea levels, as well as where scientists are predicting high tides and coastal flooding will occur in parts of NYC and Long Island decades down the line.
NYSCI’s Connected Worlds exhibit immerses visitors in four different ecosystems — desert, river valley, jungle and swamplands — displayed on 14-foot tall interactive screens. Visitors can use hand movements to control plant growth and animal life, demonstrating how different actions can either disrupt or balance water levels.
The exhibit, which simulates real water systems, was created as a joint effort between scientists and design firm Design I/O.

Armin Haque, an explainer at Connected Worlds, said that the goal of the activity is to allow kids to play “Mother Nature.”
“We’re trying to put kids in a space where they normally don’t have control and show them how they actually have a hand in ecosystems,” Haque said. “The big idea is cause and effect, maintaining balance and having them understand their role in it… The older the kids get, the more we can talk about climate change.”
The exhibit can also be programmed to different modes, modeling the impacts of flooding and droughts on each ecosystem.
Last, the center’s Design Lab hosts craft-making exercises with climate-related prompts designed to spark critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Visitors will have the opportunity to tell shadow stories about ecosystems, construct natural disaster-resistant structures, experiment with city planning using feedback from an AI model, and find creative ways to recycle and dispose of waste using everyday objects.
“It gives you a chance to work with things you’re familiar with, and some things you’re not,” Labriole explained. “It really makes you think.”

NYSCI leadership explained that the science center is intent on presenting visitors with the facts, opening the space for discussion and questions rather than imposing an agenda. The center instead uses its space to host other organizations that specifically advocate for environmental justice.
“We act as a convener,” Labriole explained. “NYSCI is a trusted space, but it’s also playful. We can be having a hard conversation, like what we want to do about traffic. But when you’re here, it takes the temperature of the conversation down.”
By acting as a venue for expos, such as today’s Queens Climate Expo, the science center provides resources to support informed conversations about the state of the environment and how policy can impact its future.
“When we’re talking about a sensitive topic through the lens of education without an outside agenda, there’s hope,” said Delia Meza, director of family learning at NYSCI. “That’s why working with community organizations is so significant to community members.”
Meza explained that NYSCI’s approach is all about lived experience, which gives visitors control over the conversation. It also gives agency to those whose voices are not always included or heard in conversations about climate change — especially those in neighborhoods that most feel its impacts such as Corona, Flushing, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst.
Through the NYC DEP Cloudburst Hub project, Meza has brought together members of the center’s Family Advisory Committee — composed of parents and caregivers from the local community — to share their thoughts on what they feel the city needs to address in their neighborhoods. 
“I think the community that lives in and around NYSCI hasn’t been brought into the conversation about why this is happening,” Meza said. “The conversations I’ve been hearing are about destruction happening on a much more frequent basis and the aftermath. But now we’re in a place where we can bring more understanding.”
NYSCI said it welcomes visitors of all ages to join the conversation and be a part of the Queens Climate Expo, and it will continue Climate Week activities through Sunday.
For more information about the science center, visit NYSCI.org.
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