Mad Science, Chesapeake

Mad Science’s highly trained instructors strive to ignite scientific curiosity in young learners, eschewing dry lectures for engaging hands-on activities, experiments, and games. Their professional, age-appropriate syllabi—which meet national- and state-science-curriculum standards—broaden educational horizons during afterschool programs, in-class workshops, summer camps, and preschool programs, cleverly disguising the fundamentals of scientific exploration within interactive experiments. As the junior scientists get down to business with oodles of hands-on experiments, the instructors teach them the safe and proper use of their equipment. Mad Science also hosts special events and birthday parties—which earned it the Parents Connect Parents' Picks 2009 Best Party Entertainer award—that open little eyes to scientific concepts with on-location experiments, hovercraft rides, or a freshly cloned woolly mammoth.