Save a snowball for the Carnegie Science Center

With the Greater Pittsburgh area dealing with a winter storm expected to bring several inches of snow, it seems like a perfect time to start saving snowballs.

The Carnegie Science Center is encouraging potential visitors to make a snowball this winter, save it in their freezer, and bring it to the Science Center on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 20. It’s all part of the annual Snowball Day celebration. Anyone bringing a snowball that day will pay $5 for general admission tickets.

In addition to the discounted admission ticket, visitors will launch their snowball with a catapult at a Snowball Launch Site and learn about snowy science in the demonstration theaters.

“Aside from using the catapult that we use every year to launch the snowballs into the Allegheny River, visitors will discover engineering skills they didn’t know they had by building their own catapults,” said Connie George, Carnegie Science Center senior director of marketing. “They’ll also learn how ice crystals are formed and how heat is transferred. We try to make science learning a part of the fun and it gives people something to do when it snows, collect snowballs and put them in their freezer.”

The Science Center began hosting Snowball Day in 2006. In past years, hundreds of snowballs have been kept intact in freezers throughout the region and taken to the Science Center in coolers, freezer bags, coffee cans and plastic storage containers.

The Science Center is planning on putting covid safety precautions in place, such as limiting capacity to 25% and enforcing a mask policy. Also, anything that people will touch, such as the catapults, will be cleaned and disinfected after each use, George said.

“Hopefully things will be different in June,” said George. “Hopefully our capacity level will be higher based on vaccination rates but that’s all something that’s to be determined.”

The Science Center will be asking people to purchase timed tickets online so that it can limit capacity, George said.