ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum

🎶 JUST ANNOUNCED! 🎶

We’re excited to welcome the Pozitronics to Monster Ball on Saturday, October 24! They’ll be bringing their high-energy live music to the party, so get ready to dance, celebrate, and have a lot of Halloween fun. 👻🎃

Monster Ball is already packed with spooky science, aerial performances, a haunted house, karaoke, hands-on activities, our annual costume contest, and more. Now we’ve got live music too!

🎃 Monster Ball
📅 Saturday, October 24
⏰ 4 to 8 PM
📍 ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum

Costumes encouraged. Wonder guaranteed!
Scienceworksmuseum.org/monster-ball

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ScienceWorks is proud to co-sponsor this free special lecture hosted by Southern Oregon Land Conservancy featuring renowned naturalist, educator, and artist John (Jack) Muir Laws.

Jack will introduce his approach to nature journaling — a practice that uses observation, curiosity, and creativity to deepen our connection with the natural world. No artistic or scientific experience is required; all you need is a notebook, a pencil, and your curiosity! Join us from 10:30 AM to noon at the SOU Science Lecture Hall. Seating is first-come, first-served, so come early!

Special Lecture by John Muir Laws
SOU Science Lecture Hall — 1250 Ashland Street, Ashland
Sunday, October 11
10:30 AM to 12 Noon
Free

If you drive on Walker Avenue in Ashland, you may have noticed a new and exciting resident at ScienceWorks: Beatrice the Widowmaker, our new giant spider sculpture!

Created out of steel by sculptor Cheryl Garcia in 2008, Beatrice has moved around a bit, but she has finally found her forever home here with us at the museum. A kind Ashland local who purchased the property where Beatrice was living donated her to ScienceWorks, and we are overjoyed to have cleaned her up, given her a fresh coat of paint, and installed her where the whole town can see and enjoy her. Her slightly spooky, shiny black exterior reminds us that MONSTER BALL is coming, and that spider season is upon us!

Late summer is giant house spider mating season, and you will likely see a lot of these harmless but hairy locals out and about in your homes and garages looking for love. House spiders of all kinds are often found around human-built structures, where they like to hide and help keep our homes free of mosquitos, ants, and other pest insects.

If you find a lonely house spider this fall, consider releasing it outside so it can continue protecting our homes and gardens. Like many spiders, male house spiders have longer legs but smaller bodies than the females, though female giant house spiders don't have anything on Beatrice!

Beatrice is an abstracted interpretation of a widow spider; the genus that includes brown, red, and black widows. These spiders earned their name because they partake in a type of cannibalism in which the venomous female eats the harmless male after mating. Talk about a bad date! Despite this gruesome habit and their scary reputation, black widows like Beatrice mostly stick to themselves and try to avoid interacting with humans. When they do bite, their venom can be painful but is rarely fatal.

Luckily for us, Beatrice is a widow spider you can interact with without worrying about a bite. Stroll down Walker Avenue to welcome her to the neighborhood this fall, and take a photo or two to ring in spider season and the approach of Halloween!

To learn more, visit ScienceWorksMuseum.org

📚🍻 Thank You for a Wonderful Books & Brews! 🎨

What a wonderful day! We couldn’t have asked for better weather - or a better turnout - for Books & Brews and our Community Mural project. We were so pleased to see so many people come out and celebrate our mutual love of literature together.

And what a mural you helped us start! 856 paint-filled balloons were donated and thrown at the museum, creating the colorful foundation for a brand-new community mural. Artist Ursula Barton is now working her magic, adding motifs inspired by patterns in the natural world. You can see them beginning to take shape in these photos. She'll be here for one more day, come say hi! 👀 Can you identify the snake skin pattern? 🐍

These are just a handful of the photos from the day. You can find the growing collection on the Books & Brews page of our website. We’ll continue adding more as they come in. www.scienceworksmuseum.org/books-and-brews

We’re incredibly grateful to all the authors, booksellers, food and beverage vendors, community partners, volunteers, artists, and everyone who came out to make Books & Brews such a wonderful day. Most of all, thank you for showing up and helping us create something that belongs to our community. ❤️

Keep an eye out for more photos - and for the finished mural!

Hello ScienceWorks friends!

This dapper fellow is a Black Phoebe and your September Bird of the Month.

Fall has come to ScienceWorks and the birds are showing it. White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows are back from their more northerly breeding grounds, goldfinches are all over the place eating seeds, Yellow-rumped Warblers are migrating through, and Oregon residents like Black Phoebes are exploring new foraging opportunities. These birds show up every once in a while at ScienceWorks in the fall and winter but never seem to stick around for too long.

Black Phoebes are close cousins to the Say’s Phoebe, my first Bird of the Month post back in April, 2025. They have similar shapes but very different color schemes. Both species are flycatchers that hunt by hawking (or flycatching) insects from a perch.

While Say’s Phoebes like dry, fairly barren habitat, Black Phoebes prefer wetter, greener habitat with openings where they can sally out to catch insects. I often find them along Bear Creek and other places with a mix of lush vegetation, good perches, and openings.

Like many other birds, Black Phoebes will perch on human structures just as readily as they will bushes and trees. I see them on fences, rails, barn rafters, the roof of the museum, and even on the inside of our geodesic dome!

Phoebes have a long, elegant profile. This backlit photo is a good example of how the silhouette of a bird can help in identification. The Black Phoebe on the left has a longer, thinner bill and sleeker shape than the more rotund finches and sparrows on the right with deep, short bills.

I find Black Phoebes to be very beautiful. Their bold little tuxedos look like they could have been designed by a talented graphic artist. Or maybe good designers are inspired by what we intuitively find pleasing in nature. Look for them on prominent perches along rivers, near well-watered lawns and gardens, and in the dome at ScienceWorks!

Happy Birding!

Read more of Nate's posts on Scienceworksmuseum.org/field-notes

Over two days in June this summer, twenty-four incredible artists transformed blank 8’ x 8’ panels into large-scale murals exploring the theme of Belonging. The public was invited to watch the entire process unfold while chatting with artists about their vision and techniques.

A true community festival was accomplished with live music, beloved local food trucks, and the hum of conversation between vendors, visitors, and artists. The atmosphere was vibrant, welcoming, and inspiring. Mural Fest wasn’t just about watching art being made — it was about celebrating together, experiencing creativity in action, and feeling part of something bigger than ourselves.

Now, these one-of-a-kind mural panels are available to take home through the Mural Fest Silent Auction, open online through September 30. Proceeds go directly to the artists, helping them continue their work, with 15% supporting the future of Mural Fest itself. Buying a mural doesn’t just bring a striking piece of contemporary art into your home or business, it lays the financial foundation for this event to continue into a third year and beyond.

Now more than ever, we need to come together to support what we love and want to see more of in our community. By bidding on a mural, you're not only capturing the spirit of summer 2026, you’re investing in local artists, public art, and a unique festival that brings joy, connection, and inspiration to Southern Oregon.

The murals will remain on display at ScienceWorks until September 30. Come see them in person before they’re gone, then place your bids online to make one your own. After September, the unsold panels will be painted over for next year’s event — a reminder that the beauty of connection can be fleeting unless we choose to preserve it.

👉 Browse the auction and place your bids here
https://event.auctria.com/b13ff090-a310-41ef-b1c7-541a36c598b8/a780d600ec2e11e9ae081db830846aa5?2bd25550ec3411e98fdeb3a273cf08d8%2FcurrentPage=0

🎨 Visit the Mural Fest Website
https://muralfestashland.wordpress.com/team/

Our Selfie Station is up and running! Come to Books & Brews today 11 AM to 4 PM and take a silly pic! Don’t forget to tag us and share the silliness!

We're looking forward to our Books & Brews event on September 26, from 11 AM - 4 PM! In the meantime, we thought we'd share some of our staff's book recommendations. What's your favorite book? Let us know in the comments!

📚🍻 Books & Brews is almost here!

Meet local authors, browse books from independent booksellers, swap a book, try your hand at crossword construction, watch live illustration, grab some food, and enjoy a drink while you explore.

Check out the event map and schedule to plan your visit, and see what’s happening throughout the day.

There’s something for every age and every kind of reader. Save this post, bring a friend, and come spend the day with us!

📅 Saturday, September 26
🕚 11 AM to 4 PM
📍 ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum
www.ScienceWorksMuseum.org/Books-and-Brews