Cary-based Science Fun offers free science kits, plans virtual camp for kids

Science Fun for Everyone usually provides camps and field trips to thousands of school kids across the region. But the pandemic has forced the Cary-based business, like many others, to do things differently.

I checked in with Krissy Williams to learn more about how she's made quick changes to offer virtual activities to families across the region. Williams is a mother of two girls and stepmom to one boy and is a former meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.

"When it wasn’t hurricane season, I also traveled to schools to teach students the importance of weather safety and preparedness," she tells me. "This is where my love for teaching began."

Here's a Q&A:

Go Ask Mom: A lot of Triangle families are familiar with Science Fun's camps and in-school field trips. Tell us about how it got its start and what all you've offered over the years.

Krissy Williams: Shortly after my first daughter was born, I started to struggle with midnight shifts at the weather service and raising a family. At the same time, my wonderful parents decided they wanted to retire and agreed to help me launch a business that would fulfill our family’s true passion: teaching science to children in a FUN way.

We have grown over the past 13 years and have a staff of 20 amazing scientists who have a genuine passion for teaching children in a fun, hands-on way. We offer in-schools science field trips, track-out and summer camps, science birthday parties, teacher professional development, preschool science, middle-school science and after-school science programming. Our main mission is to ALWAYS make sure the children are having FUN, learning and being safe. Last year we taught over 90,000 elementary-aged students in the Triangle area.

GAM: The pandemic has forced most businesses to pivot, including yours. How did you respond?

KW: This has been a challenging time for ScienceFun because we LOVE the “hands-on” approach to learning science. We love being in the classrooms and getting the students’ hands messy and actually “doing” science together. We also miss our Jr. Scientist campers and all the hugs they give when they walk into the Science Lab. We also miss seeing all of our scientist employees each day at our Science Lab.

With schools being closed, all of our in-school field trips have been canceled.

We know our community is suffering in many ways and our ScienceFun family wants to give back. We want to be sure children still have a Science Fun experience, even at home. Therefore, we extended the offer for one FREE ScienceFun excavation kit for families to enjoy while at home, until the end of May. Before the stay-at-home order, we provided curbside pick-up at our ScienceLab. If you pay just the $2.40 postage fee, we will mail your kit/order to your home immediately. This has been a huge success and we are happy to still be able to provide this opportunity.

Orders must be registered online:
Visit https://sciencefunforkids.com/ to place your order
use coupon code for the free kit: ScienceFunAtHome

We also have a special Kids Zone area set up at http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/.

There you'll find:

• Science experiments for kids to do at home
• Fun science trivia that meet the NC curriculum standards
• Funny science jokes just to make you laugh and have fun!

GAM: What kind of activities are you offering for families now?

KW: We are super excited to announce our new ScienceFun experiences for your children to do at home!

For $12, you get all the supplies needed for your science experiments/projects, shipping to your home, access to a ScienceFun scientist online to demonstrate how to build or do the experiment, trivia questions related to the experiment and more.

The new online science field trips feature kits that meet science curriculum standards. And this summer, we have decided to offer a week-long virtual Science Camp option. Sign-ups will begin in May.

We still want to EDUtain the children, even if it’s in their homes.

GAM: Lots of people get intimidated by science, but it can be so easy to demonstrate really simple concepts to kids. How do you guys make it fun?

KW: It is very easy for us to make science fun because all the scientists that work with us really are “kids at heart”… even my 73-year-old mother, who is amazing with the kids. We remember back to when we were children and what excited us and then we magnify that! We want to be the “Disney” of the science world. If we can motivate children at a young age and get them excited about science and the world around them, then we hope that will carry on with them for the rest of their lives.

GAM: What's one of your favorite easy hands-on science activities that anybody can do?

KW: One very easy hands-on science activity that most people can do at home right now is to go on an “at-home” ice fishing excursion. All you need is ice, salt and a piece of string. This is one of the kids' favorites (and mine too)! Here are all the details: http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/ice-fishing/

Go Ask Mom features local moms every Monday.