Watch this space for notes from International Observe the Moon Night event hosts, observers, and supporters around the world.

What is the Cape Fear Museum?

Cape Fear Museum is a history and science museum located in southeastern North Carolina. Our mission is to inspire and engage visitors with the history, science, and cultures of the Lower Cape Fear region. The Museum draws on a collection of more than 59,000 items to help us explore a wide range of topics and local stories.

“Make it fun! Learning about the Moon, viewing it, and celebrating it is our goal.”

Describe your participation in International Observe the Moon Night.

Our institution first participated in International Observe the Moon Night in 2017. In 2020, we offered a virtual event due to pandemic restrictions: participants picked up educational kits at our front desk prior to the event and then joined our educators online for a fun-filled evening of lunar science, exploration, dancing, art and storytelling. We have participated in International Observe the Moon Night annually since 2020 with in-person activities both inside the museum and out on the grounds of the Museum Park. We typically see anywhere from 250 - 400 participants for this event.

What’s your favorite International Observe the Moon Night memory? Or favorite Moon memory?

There are so many great memories to choose from! I always love seeing the reactions of participants when they look through the telescopes or binoculars and see the Moon for the first time under magnification—that never gets old! It's also really sweet seeing families posing together for photos in front of our giant Moon backdrop, wearing paper space helmets that they just made and dressed in astronaut-inspired clothing that we provide as props.

Other great memories include watching kids, adults, and entire families dancing and acting out parts of interactive stories read by a local librarian at our Stellar Story Corner. The astronaut photo station and the Stellar Story Corner are two activities that we offer every year, and it's great to see families eagerly returning and enjoying them with kids who are a little older each time.

What is your favorite Moon-related hands-on activity?

With so many Moon-related activities to choose from, it's hard to pick just one! Some of my favorites have been:

• Lunar Base Camp: participants imagine, plan, and build a lunar base camp out of crafts.
• First Words: participants read Neil Armstrong's famous quote after he took his first steps on the Moon, then write on a sticky note what their first words would have been (these are displayed on a nearby wall for all to read—we got some hilarious responses).
• My Moon Poem: participants read famous poems about the Moon, inspiring them to create their own Moon poetry (they could choose from an acrostic, a couplet, or a blackout poem).
• Lunar Rover Challenge: participants program a LEGO rover to navigate around physical obstacles on a giant Moon poster on the floor.
• Moon Rockets: participants make and launch a paper "stomp-rocket" across our auditorium in an attempt to hit a giant Moon poster (ie. 'land it on the Moon').
• What Do You See?: participants view images of what different cultures around the world see in the contrasting lighter and darker regions of the full moon, and then use their imagination to draw what they see on an image of the full moon.

After organizing one or more International Observe the Moon Night events, what lessons have you learned about planning events in your community?

We've definitely learned some lessons over the years!

1. Be flexible with your plans! Weather changes. Viewing conditions change. Volunteers get sick and have to back out. Crowds show up. It's good to have back-up activities/plans ready to go, just in case.
2. Have a mix of indoor and outdoor activities planned, if that is possible for your venue. (See #1.)
3. Make it fun! Learning about the Moon, viewing it, and celebrating it is our goal. Audiences will return year after year if your event is fun and exciting as well.
4. Involve everyone—not just kids! Design activities that necessitate group work and intergenerational learning and doing. Have challenges or group activities that involve adults. Sometimes adults just need a reason (or an excuse!) to have fun, let loose, and join in.
5. Provide seating, if possible, at any activities where you want participants to stick around longer. For some people, seating is a necessity.
6. Provide food if possible. We work with a couple of local food trucks. We have found that for our event, snack-type foods seem to sell better than meal-type options (shaved ice, popcorn, corn dogs, etc. are popular items). With food trucks, it’s simple—they show up and handle it all. You just tell them where to park. Food also helps keep people at your event longer, and makes for a great down-time activity break.
7. Consider using background music. Our activities take place outside in our museum park as well as inside our museum, in classrooms and exhibit spaces. Some of the classrooms have space-themed music. It helps with ambiance, provides for a more festive atmosphere, and it seems to get people talking more too.
8. Involve community partners in planning and implementing your event! Local county libraries may be able to offer Moon-related interactive story readings at your event. Ask if a local Senior Resource Center, college, or community group can provide volunteers. Get your local astronomy club involved. Ours—Cape Fear Astronomical Society—provides telescopes, binoculars, and people to assist our audience in viewing the Moon, planets, and more.
9. Be available. If you oversee the event, don’t assign yourself to any specific activity station. You are much more likely to be needed roving around and "putting out fires" as we say here at the museum—handling issues that crop up, filling in for others, providing breaks for volunteers, and greeting/thanking participants for coming out to the event.
10. Want to know what your visitors want at your event? Ask them! A feedback board or wall is a great way to find out what participants look forward to most at your event, why they return year after year, or what other things they'd like to see or do at your event. Post a question on the wall, and leave out a table with pencils and sticky notes. You'll get answers soon enough!

There are so many great memories to choose from!