June to August 2025 – Dive Deeper! 

Special Event Days  

World Ocean Day – June 8
We are all connected to the ocean, even here in Charlotte. Dive into ocean exploration and celebrate World Ocean Day at Discovery Place Science.

Visit our traveling exhibition, OceanXperience, and immerse yourself in current and ongoing ocean research and exploration. Then dive deeper into our unique lab spaces to conduct your own experiments around sound, salt, and water. Discover the impact you can have on ocean conservation as you tinker with biorock and underwater exploration.

Activities will rotate through the day, but will include shell sorting, coral building, an aquarium scavenger hunt, ocean ecosystem game, and watercolor painting.

World Play Day – June 11
What does the world need? More PLAY! 

Join people around the world and celebrate play on the second, annual World Play Day presented in partnership with the LEGO Playful Learning Museum Network.  

Museum guests at Discovery Place Science, Discovery Place Kids Huntersville, and Discovery Place Kids Rockingham will use their imagination and creativity to reimagine the cities we live in to add more play. Guests are invited to participate in building challenges, collaborate on a more playful city, and explore different building materials. 
 
Shark Week – July 20 – 26 
Celebrate Shark Week at Discovery Place and discover the facts behind the fins. Sharks are integral to maintaining a healthy balance in marine ecosystems and benefit the ocean and the climate. These apex predators have been swimming in the word’s ocean for over 400 million years, but now more than a third of all shark and ray species are threatened with extinction.  

Start your shark explorations in OceanXperience, where you can immerse yourself in research currently being conducted around hammerhead sharks. Young marine biologists can excavate real shark teeth, identify fossils of land and sea animals, and compare today’s sharks to predators of the past in KidScience. And during daily shark dissections guests can watch as a Discovery Place Scientist uncovers the amazing adaptations that make these animals unique and important.

Explore More Me 

In the Lab: 
Maritime Medicine and Microscopy (Daily starting June 16): In the morning, explore where medicine and the ocean meet and walk in the watery shoes of different maritime medical professionals. In the afternoon, use methylene blue to stain a sample of your own cheek cells and observe them under a microscope.  

From the Field: 
From the Field: Injury Prevention Day (August 2, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.): Join the Carolinas Center for Injury Prevention in engaging activities to start the school year off safe!

Living Planet Lab 

In the Lab: 
Ocean of Research (Daily): Researchers face unique problems when investigating the ocean. Dive in to find the challenges the ocean presents and the solutions marine scientists have discovered. 

Tech Innovation Lab 

In the Lab:  
Oceanic Fundamentals (Daily): Explore the world of energy! Where it comes from, how we use it, and how it helps power our planet. In the afternoons, dive even deeper to uncover how sound travels through water, air, and solid matter. Use interactive technology to see sound in action and learn how marine animals and scientists use sound to explore the sea. 

From the Field:
Atomic Allies (June 21 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.): Discover the power of clean energy through interactive demonstrations and fun activities that showcase the role of nuclear technology in a sustainable future. Learn how inclusive careers in the nuclear sector shape tomorrow’s energy solutions and how you can be part of it!   

Thinker Space

In the Lab:  
Submerged Designs (Daily): Explore how engineering can help restore our coral reefs by building a BioRock prototype, designing a model of a deep-sea monster, or experimenting with materials to create a scientific tool for underwater exploration.  

Kid Science

Our Blue Planet (Daily): There is one ocean, and we all share it! Our youngest guests will learn how water flows and changes, who lives in our waterways—from prehistoric sharks to present-day mollusks—and why humans depend on the sea.