April’s NCSciFest shows ‘Science Matters’ in all 100 counties

Science matters every month of the year, but here it’s particularly important in April. That’s when a network of schools, libraries, museums and individuals in the state’s 100 counties present the North Carolina Science Festival, the nation’s first statewide event of its kind.

“Science Matters” is also the theme of the 2026 NCSciFest. As it turns 16, the festival expects to surpass 4 million in cumulative participation through hundreds of activities like the Statewide Star Party, science fairs, lab tours and demonstrations celebrating science, technology, engineering and math.

NCSciFest bring interactive science experiences to participants across the state. (Submitted photo)

“We want to blow the doors off every April,” said Todd Boyette, director of the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and founder of the festival. “I want people from other parts of the country to say, ‘Have you ever been to North Carolina in April? There are science events everywhere you go.’”

The idea for the festival dates to 2007, when Boyette and his staff visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum. The museum director, John Durant, was running late because he was working on the Cambridge Science Festival.

“I don’t know what the Cambridge Science Festival is, but please tell us about it because it sounds cool,” Boyette said at the time.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California, were the first cities in America to stage European-style science festivals. But Boyette wanted to go bigger.

“I just felt like we were missing a lot if we copied everybody else with a regional science festival because we’re at the University of North Carolina. It was important to me to think about the entire state,” he said.

The UNC Science Expo features more than 100 booths where volunteers engage the public in hands-on activities. (Submitted photo)

True, some of the festival’s largest and most memorable events happen at home in Chapel Hill. People still talk about the 2010 visit by the hosts of Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters,” and the April 11 UNC Science Expo will feature more than 100 booths staffed by scientists and students.

But the festival has always stretched east to Grifton and west to Cullowhee, North Carolina, and both places are also participating this year.

In Grifton, John Bray co-founded A Time for Science with his wife, Nancy, a former science educator whose hands-on style of teaching inspired the center. For the inaugural NCSciFest, “we did something on the science behind old-timey toys,” he said. The toys included a “telephone” made with a string connecting two cups and an old mountain toy called the whammy-diddle, a stick with a propeller on top.

At the other end of the state, Western Carolina University has been an annual participant in the festival’s Statewide Star Party (April 24-25 this year), when professional and amateur astronomers set up telescopes for public stargazing.

One memorable event for Enrique Gomez, WCU associate professor of chemistry, physics and astronomy, was when a group of students — inspired by the Mars rover Perseverance and a windy night — built their own wind-powered rover.

“This was not part of the setup. The kids themselves were going in a brand-new direction. And this is what the science festival is all about,” Gomez said. “It is about connection, and it is about helping each other learn in a cooperative manner and to celebrate innovation.”

Having events in every county is a point of pride for Boyette. The success of the festival has even enabled him to return the favor to the person who sparked his idea.

“One of my prouder moments was when John Durant, whom I would consider the grandfather of science festivals in the country, called me and asked me how to do statewide festival programming,” Boyette said.

See the full lineup of events statewide, and search by audience, activity or location.

(Submitted grahpic)