PREVIEW

Engage in a bit of rocket science — by launching water-bottle rockets.

Check out a spinning globe, Science on a Sphere, to experience the dynamics of how the Earth ticks — with video projections of oceans, land masses, clouds, even the weather conditions when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Find out about global warming.

Learn tidbits about archaeology, entomology, even marine biology.

Explore telescopic solar viewing of the skies in the Watumull Planetarium.

It's all part of today's Mad About Science Festival at Bishop Museum — a daylong exploration of the wonders of science.

One of the must-sees: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Science on a Sphere, an animated, eye-catching globe that displays the continents and oceans with factoids — when it's not disguised as an oversized basketball.

You can pump up the faux volcano action at two different spots in the Science Adventure Center — a first-floor gizmo that shows how underground lava surfaces in Madame Pele's furious dance, and an upper-level perch that shows bubbling and steaming lava complete with a soundtrack. Or walk through a man-made volcano, which erupts in the dark for effect.

Members of the McKinley High School robotics team are also strut their stuff in the Science Adventure Center.

"It's a way to celebrate and have families see the Hawai'i science we feature at the museum,"

said Hi'ilani Shibata, the museum's director of

educational programs. "We invite our partner

organizations … and open up the science part of the museum."

(If you've not yet seen Animal Grossology, the special attraction in the Castle Memorial Building, it's also on view; get the scoop on poop, learn about tapeworms and various other icky critters.)

The science festival — now in its fourth year — aims to serve as a hands-on opportunity for both kids and adults to discover how science can be fun, not forbidding.

DETAILS:

MAD ABOUT

SCIENCE FESTIVAL

9 a.m.-5 p.m. tomorrow

Bishop Museum, including the Great Lawn, Watumull Planetarium, and Science Adventure Center

$3 kama'aina with ID, active-duty and retired military; free for museum members and children 3 and younger; $15.95 other adults, $12.95 other youths 4-12 and those 65 and older

847-3511, www.bishopmuseum.org