In 2023, Liberty Science Center celebrates its 30th anniversary of inspiring learners of all ages about the power, promise, and pure fun of science and technology. Today LSC includes iconic experiences that date from the Center’s opening and have stood the test of time: the randomly (or not so randomly?) expanding Hoberman Sphere, the Touch Tunnel, and the giant sneezing blue nose in Microbes Rule! LSC also includes must-see experiences that have been added since our 25th anniversary and account for the near doubling of LSC’s annual attendance to 750,000 visitors. Experiences like the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium (which has the proud distinction of being the largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere), LSC After Dark programming for adults, the big beautiful glowing Science on a Sphere in the Weston Family Lab for Earth and Space Exploration, the Wobbly World young learners area, the Weston Family Art and Science Pavilion, and the outdoor Dino Dig Adventure. The Great Train Set opened in the summer of 2022, and a renovated observation tower, the Robert Wood Johnson III Tower, opens in the spring of 2023..
We have undertaken an ambitious expansion called SciTech Scity, a mini city of tomorrow. When the 30-acre SciTech Scity innovation campus fully opens in 2025, it will include Liberty Science Center High School (a countywide public magnet STEM academy), Edge Works (an 8-story business-incubation facility and conference center to launch and grow world-changing science and technology start-ups), Scholars Village (residential housing for families and individuals who want to join a community dedicated to using science and technology to create a better future for everyone), and Public Commons (four acres of outdoor sciencey activations open to all).
In celebration of our milestone 30th anniversary, we have launched a $30 million capital campaign to complete the last funding piece of SciTech Scity ($6 million) and continue the updating and reimagining of LSC’s galleries and experiences ($24 million) with the goal of being the most dynamic, engaging, and inspiring science learning center in the world.
LSC Board Member Dr. Richard Hodosh will chair this campaign with active engagement from all of LSC’s trustees and staff.
We are seeking both individual and corporate donors for this campaign and will be happy to design a giving program to fit your specific interests and needs.
CAMPAIGN OPPORTUNITIES INCLUDE:
• The final funding for SciTech Scity
• Programming and equipment update for Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium
• Renovation of labs and classrooms in LSC Center for Learning and Teaching
• Programming and art/tech shows in Weston Family Art and Science Pavilion and elsewhere at LSC
• Big Balloon
• Renovation of Traveling Exhibition Spaces, 3rd and 4th floors
• Reimagining the Skyscraper! gallery
• Reimagining the Energy Quest gallery
• Completion of Wild About Animals gallery
• Completion of Infection Connection
• Renewal of Our Hudson Home gallery
• Guest Wayfinding
On the following pages you will find additional details on how you can help inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators by supporting students and families today.
Onward and upward,
LSC’S 3O TH ANNIVERSARY
For additional information, please contact Christine Arnold-Schroeder at 201.253.1362 or cschroeder@lsc.org.
Liberty Science Center has been part of my life for more than 20 years. As head of neurosurgery at Atlantic Health, I performed countless neurosurgical procedures for an audience of middle and high school students, courtesy of LSC’s Live From Surgery program. While I now live in Aspen, I remain committed to LSC as a trustee and agreed to lead this campaign because I am passionate about its mission to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators. Through its exhibits and programs, LSC truly endeavors to make better citizens of all the young people whose lives it touches.
I continue to be energized by the innovative direction of LSC. As we mark the Science Center’s 30th anniversary, I celebrate its passion for nurturing scientific curiosity. I salute LSC’s dedicated educators who deliver programs—including Live From Surgery—that encourage thousands of students in New Jersey and beyond to pursue careers in STEM fields. These are the kids who will become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and problem solvers.
As the Science Center expands its footprint and its ambitions to build SciTech Scity, I am committed to helping ensure a bright future for LSC and the children and families it serves. I was fortunate to have a tremendously rewarding career here in New Jersey and to share my knowledge with students through LSC. By chairing this campaign, I am honored to give back to an organization and a community of forward-thinking individuals that inspire me to keep discovering. LSC’s greatest gift is its commitment to supporting learners of all ages to embrace the power and promise of science and technology—and to dream big.
I invite you to join me in inventing the future by making world-class LSC STEM opportunities accessible to explorers everywhere.
Sincerely,
LIBERTY SCIENCE CENTER BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Our current roster of LSC Trustees boasts a high caliber of leadership and talent that we’ve been able to attract. Our trustees are senior executives of global companies, including Bank of America, BCG, Bristol Myers Squibb, EY, JPMorgan Chase, PwC and Verizon. They are leaders at respected firms such as Goldman Sachs and PSEG. They are investors and philanthropists who are passionate about science and STEM education. They are scientists and entrepreneurs who are world leaders in fields such as cryptocurrency and cellular medicine.
For additional information, please contact Christine Arnold-Schroeder at 201.253.1362 or cschroeder@lsc.org.
LIBERTY SCIENCE CENTER
WHERE THE FUTURE COMES TO PLAY
About LSC
• Opened in 1993. Greatly expanded in 2007, then again in 2020 and 2021.
• Biggest and most-visited hands-on science learning center in the New York metropolitan area.
• Mission is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and close the STEM-workforce gap
• Home to the largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and 300,000 square feet of theaters, labs, and exhibition spaces.
• 750,000+ total annual attendance as of 2019. Fastest-growing established museum in the United States: 65% attendance increase in 5 years.
• 280,000+ K-12 students participate annually in STEM education programs at LSC.
• Serves 91,000+ “high needs” students from some of New Jersey’s lowest-income neighborhoods.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, became NJ’s largest provider of live virtual STEM programming to sheltered-in-place students and teachers. The astronomy webcasts alone drew 201,749 viewers in 2020.
• Bestows prestigious “Genius Awards.” Annual Genius Gala is the must-attend innovation event in NJ.
• Building 30-acre SciTech Scity innovation campus (fully opening 2025).
ONLY $6 MILLION MORE will make the $436-million SciTech Scity a reality!
SciTech Scity is a business optimizer, a new breed of innovation campus that aims to maximize commercial success and social impact by creating companies that radically improve the world. In the tradition of Walt Disney’s original vision of EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), SciTech Scity will be an internationally recognized community where businesses test—and residents and visitors experience— new science-based products and services before they come to market. SciTech Scity will bring together technologists, scientists, civic leaders, engaged citizens, teachers, students, and other thinkers and doers who share renowned computer scientist Alan Kay’s prescription that “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” The word Scity (pronounced “city”), from Sci ence + city , is LSC’s portmanteau for a city infused with scientific creativity and actionable optimism about building a better future for all of us. SciTech Scity will help drive New Jersey’s innovation economy and put Jersey City and New Jersey on the leading edge of applied science worldwide.
JENNIFER CHALSTY PLANETARIUM Programming and Equipment Update
The Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium is the largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and presents live, curated planetarium shows in which students and guests actively engage with astronomers and educators. The universe is dynamic and our knowledge of space grows and changes, quite literally, on a daily basis: Think of the images from the James Webb Space Telescope! LSC’s need to update facts, track space missions, explore and explain astronomical events, cover satellite launches and keep up with NASA’s releases of new images is constant. In addition, five years after its opening, the planetarium is ready for an update of its spectacular technology. We are seeking support for the purchase of new equipment as well as supporting the ongoing need for creation of new and updated planetarium shows.
CENTER FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING Renovation of the Interactive Theater, Labs, and Classrooms
Home to the Interactive Theater seating 100, the Forum, seven working laboratory classrooms, and a studio for Electronic Field Trips, LSC’s CLT is at the heart of our summer LSC Science Camp and flagship Live From Surgery program. On weekends and holidays, the space is often used for family programming and special presentations. The 19,000-sq-ft facility at LSC is ready for complete updating, refurbishing, and renovation. Individual spaces and classrooms and the theater represent individual naming opportunities or a major gift opportunity to name the space in its entirety.
Programming and Art/Tech Shows WESTON FAMILY ART AND SCIENCE PAVILION
This beautiful, flexible space with soaring skyline views provides LSC with vital overflow space on high-capacity days. The Weston Family Art and Science Pavilion is a permanent tencel structure which was completed in late 2020, and was designed as an ideal venue for science-based art installations and innovative tech shows. Designed with high ceilings and gallery-type lighting, the space is ready for a schedule of curated shows. Funding will support an ongoing series of art and tech shows and installations in the Pavilion and throughout LSC.
BIG BALLOON
The common area adjacent to SciTech Scity’s Edge Works business optimizer will host an iconic public art installation. Designed by internationally exhibited Argentine conceptual artist Leandro Erlich, Big Balloon will be clearly visible from the nearby turnpike and flight paths to the Newark airport. Mr. Erlich, whose work was featured at the Venice, Whitney, and Istanbul Biennials, celebrates and “defies’’ science. A site-specific creation for SciTech Scity, the work will have the familiar shape of the classic Montgolfier hot air balloon, a key invention that in 1783 carried people aloft for the first time in recorded history. Erlich’s 90-foot-tall balloon playfully defies gravity: It is upside down, with the payload basket on top. The structure will have an observation platform open at the top of Big Balloon that offers visitors spectacular 360-degree views of Jersey City, Liberty State Park, and the Statue of Liberty. Big Balloon will be a public art project that enriches the physical environment of the community and generates civic pride and engagement.
Renovation of TRAVELING EXHIBITION SPACES
Currently, two galleries host LSC’s popular traveling exhibitions. The larger gallery hosts premium exhibitions such as Titanic, Avatar, Minecraft, and Pompeii. The smaller gallery generally hosts exhibitions featuring characters familiar to our youngest guests such as PAW Patrol, Daniel Tiger, Curious George, and The Pigeon Comes to Jersey City based on the popular Mo Willems books. Varying in size from 5,000 - 7,500 sq ft, these galleries are popular, high-traffic spaces for our guests, and the wear and tear is considerable. Support for these galleries can range from renovation to full naming opportunity.
Reimagining the SKYSCRAPER! EXHIBITION SPACE
At 12,500 sq ft, this first floor gallery is by far LSC’s largest exhibition space, but it is often overlooked by visitors because it is walled off from the entrance court. The space needs to be opened up and the subject matter and interactives of the gallery entirely rethought. If the gallery keeps its urban design theme, it could be updated with, for example, a wall of vertical plants to demonstrate indoor vertical farming and the science that makes this possible as it becomes increasingly adopted, especially in arid, dry countries like the UAE. Alternatively, because of the size of the space, the gallery could be reimagined as a space to host major traveling exhibitions that would not fit in our third and fourth floor traveling galleries.
Reimagining ENERGY QUEST
Through a series of interactive stations, this gallery presents different ways that humans can generate energy: from the sun, wind, the tides, hydrocarbons, and nuclear power. The current gallery is out of date and will be reimagined to feature ingenious solutions to the planet’s energy challenges.
WILD ABOUT ANIMALS Completion
Wild About Animals is one of LSC’s most popular galleries. Its hundreds of animals are selected based on their appearance, behavior, and ability to engage visitors and because there’s an amazing science story behind each of them. Leaf-cutter ants are one of the few species besides humans who grow their own food, and naked mole rats can live up to 30 years with virtually no diseases of cellular aging or cancer. Research teams around the world are studying them for clues to healthy longevity. About 75% of the gallery has been renovated relatively recently. We are looking to refurbish the remaining 25% to make Wild About Animals even more visitor friendly and improve the guest experience when the animal husbandry team is presenting or teaching.
INFECTION CONNECTION
Completion
In recent years, this large gallery has been partially updated with the creation of the Microbes Rule! exhibit, focusing on the beneficial role that microorganisms have in our survival and Making Mammoths, provocative research at Harvard aimed at de-extincting the giant ancient elephants using the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR gene-editing technology. The remaining 60% of this gallery still needs to be reimagined to present important advances in the life sciences and medicine.
OUR HUDSON HOME Renewal
This fourth floor gallery with its iconic fresh, salt, and brackish water tanks remains a guest favorite but needs to be renewed in order to better reflect the science of climate change, rising sea levels, storm surge, flood risks, and other threats to our New York/New Jersey harbor. LSC, Jersey City, and Hoboken are all at sea level and especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Conversations about updates to this gallery include projections which trigger visualizations of historic and present-day water levels, and engineering solutions currently being studied to mediate the impact of climate change. In June 2020, New Jersey became the first state to fully integrate climate education into its K-12 learning standards. Our Hudson Home will be updated to include the threat of climate change and sea level rising to the Hudson River ecosystem and the NY-NJ metropolitan area.
GUEST WAYFINDING
With four complex floors, 12 galleries, three theaters, an atrium, cafe, restrooms, and nursing spaces as well as outdoor exhibition areas and seating, clear and easy-to-use “wayfinding” is critical to guests as they move through LSC. Well-designed wayfinding significantly improves the guest experience and also helps keep staff free to assist guests with more complex issues. As shows in traveling galleries change, all signage needs to be updated throughout the building to reflect locations, and even special events such as lectures may need to be reflected in the signage. Simply put, signage at LSC is dynamic and ever-changing which requires input from both the marketing and design teams. In addition, once SciTech Scity opens, the signage for that complex must be integrated with the LSC system of wayfinding.
LIBERTY SCIENCE CENTER WHERE THE FUTURE COMES TO PLAY
For detailed information on any of these partner or naming opportunities please contact:
