More
than 1,500 children and parents participated in an evening of adventure
throughout the American Museum of Natural History at the Fifteenth
Annual Family Party on Tuesday, October 21, 2008. Proceeds from
the evening support the Museum's educational and scientific
programming.
The Family Party is one of the Museum's best-loved annual
traditions. Taking full advantage of the magnificent halls, guests
were treated to an evening of adventure. They met live animals, dug
for dinosaur fossils, conducted fascinating experiments, simulated
space travel, interacted with scientists, and much more. This year's
Family Party featured highlights for the whole family:
The Science Center, which brought Museum scientists' ongoing
work to life through engaging, hands-on activities, included face-to-face
encounters with leeches, spiders, bed bugs, tortoises, and poison
dart frogs.
A celebrity guest appearance by Nat and Alex Wolff of the “Naked
Brothers Band ” —Members of the Nickelodeon
hit comedy series took photographs with guests and led the Middle
School Explorers through the Museum's newest exhibition, Climate
Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future.
Performances by Brady Rymer and the Little Band that Could and
magician “Magic Al”
Scholastic Build-A-Book (sponsored by Scholastic Inc.) with a
special appearance by GooseBumps author R.L. Stein
An Expedition Program for Explorers' (children ages 8 and
up) talk on Pluto with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Ph.D., Astrophysicist
and Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium
The Green Zone—Presented in tandem with Climate Change,
this educational feature explained large and small ways that each
and every person can help preserve our world.
Vice Chairs for the event were Kathryn Beach and Gentry Beach, Lucinda
Heidsieck Bhavsar, Celeste Boele, Kara Bohnsack, Donya Archer Bommer,
Vivian
Barral Chambers, Kimberly Duckett Coaxum, Lira Lee Cohen, Valerie
Colas-Ohrstrom, Romy E. Coquillette, Brenda Earl De Paola, Andrea
Lans Donahue, Amy Epes, Cozy Friedman, Katrina Froman, Lois Goodner,
Linda Vester Greenberg, Amy Griffin, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès,
Melissa Hawks, Jackie Hoffman, Juliette Janssens, Annie Leibovitz,
Simone Levinson, Tamara Leuchtenburg, Tara Lipton, Kelly Mallon,
Jessica Marinaccio, Erika Matt and Gary H. Matt, Heather Crosby
Mnuchin, Judy K. Moon, Stefanie Offit, Lisa O'Kelly, Ulla
B. Parker, Leslie Perkins, Vivian Kuan Queen, Anupama Ramakrishnan,
Elizabeth Reid, Tracey Frost Rensky, Joan Rex, Shaiza Rizavi and
Jon Friedland, Amy Robbins, Renee Rockefeller, Caralynn Sandorf
and Michael Perskin, Jean K. Scheible, Lisa Segalas, Rebecca Shalam,
Lesley Stackler, Lyss Stern, Beth Strauss, Celeste Wecker, Jordan
White and Sarah White, and Tracy Young.
