Seoul Metropolitan Science Museum to host summer festival with stargazing, hands-on activities

The Seoul Metropolitan Science Museum will hold its signature summer festival, "Midsummer at the Science Museum," during the school vacation period, the museum announced Saturday.

Running Wednesday through Aug. 2, the festival follows a "science mart" concept that lets visitors choose and participate in whichever hands-on activities interest them.

Activities include dyeing fingernails with garden balsam, decorating pet rocks and making eco-friendly mosquito repellent — each designed to illustrate the scientific principles behind the experience.

Other offerings include an eco-friendly wooden playground where visitors can explore the texture and structure of wood through play, and a paddy-field biology station where participants observe organisms that live in rice paddies.

On the evening of Aug. 1, the museum will run a summer constellation observation program. The museum will extend its hours until 10 p.m. that day.

The permanent exhibition halls will also feature short guided tours and immersive exhibition programs, along with hands-on activities tied to the displays so visitors can experience scientific principles firsthand. University student clubs participating in the Seoul Metropolitan Government's youth policy project, as well as the museum's Edu-Supporters, will operate science activity booths and science busking performances.

Full details about the festival are available on the Seoul Metropolitan Science Museum's website. Museum director Yu Man-seon said he hoped visitors would "create special memories at Seoul Metropolitan Science Museum's one-of-a-kind science mart this summer."