Another Successful Earth Day with NASA Event at Union Station

On Thursday, April 19th and Friday, April 20th, Union Station’s Main Hall was host to the fifth annual Earth Day celebration with NASA. At this great, free event, which was open to the public, people could learn about space through multimedia stories of discovery, hands-on activities, and amazing technology. Additionally, attendees had a chance to meet and get an autographed photo from former NASA Astronaut Paul Richards on April 19th. Also, in the afternoon on April 20th, participants were treated to an American folk and bluegrass performance by Round Earth Ramblers, a band of NASA employees.

Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC) had a table which people could visit to learn about the beautiful, historic station. On both days from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm, there were some very special guests – Sergeant Micah Jones and K9 dog Summer of the Amtrak Police Department. Summer is in the running for a Hero Dog Award, so we encouraged all who stopped by to vote for her. Today, April 25th is the last day to vote, so please help Summer win well-deserved recognition.

The emcee for the day was Steve Graham, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Principle Outreach Specialist. To kick the event off, opening remarks were given by:
• Dr. Michael Freilich, NASA Earth Science Division Director
• Paul Richards, Former NASA Astronaut
• Brent Reetz, Union Station Senior General Manager
• Nzinga Bryant, USRC Vice President

The children who took part were very excited to learn about NASA and Earth Day. Hye Jeong, originally from Seoul, Korea, who now lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, was visiting with her brother and parents. She thinks that the technology used to find exoplanets, other planets like Earth, is very cool. Hye Jeong said she was already interested in binary code, but was glad to learn more about them at the Earth Day event. Lastly, she mentioned that she plans to work for NASA someday. Best of luck!

Jack from Bowling Green, VA said that he really liked learning about NeMO Net and how it maps coral reefs and other things under the water. He mentioned how we already know the landmass on Earth and the other planets, but we don’t know as much about what is under the water. NASA created an app to highlight the coral reefs and mounds to classify the coral, animals, etc. under the water. Jack was also very interested to learn about how drones with infrared are used to see the coral.

McKenna from Columbia, MD learned about the way NASA tracks how much precipitation falls and how the icebergs are doing. She thinks it is interesting how NASA monitors crops and finds out how green and healthy they are. As a NASA kid onsite for the day, McKenna helped take pictures of attendees and learned how to move the pictures to the appropriate place with the NASA equipment. How fun! Lastly, she stopped by the USRC table in time to meet Sergeant Jones and Summer and she told us that Summer is very sweet.

USRC would like to thank all the NASA employees who organized the event, prepared exhibits and presentations, and imparted knowledge to interested children and adults. We would also like to extend our thanks to the following:
• the approximately 2,500 people who took part in the two-day event;
• Paul Richards, former NASA Astronaut for taking time to sign autographs;
• Michele Jacobs, event planning consultant, for her hard work helping to prepare for the event;
• Pizzeria Uno for arranging lunch for students invited by NASA;
• City Sights for agreeing to have their kiosk temporarily relocated;
• the Bus Deck Facility for arranging parking spots for buses;
• Professional Security Consultants and Amtrak Police for patrolling the event;
• all individuals and organizations that promoted the event; and
• Union Station cleaning staff for collecting trash from the Main Hall before, during, and after the event.

Additional photos can be found on USRC’s Facebook page.

(Photo Credit: Jason Hong, Zoom Digital Signage Photographer and Jillian Hess, ‎USRC Public Relations and Outreach Manager)