Mad Science is on a Mission to Spark the Imagination and Curiosity of Children

Mad Science facilitates learning in children across the world with a wide range of hands-on, instructor-led science programs that are as entertaining as they are educational. Diversity of offering and consistency in quality has grown Mad Science’s reach substantially over its 33-year history; the brand now reaches four million children annually through after-school programs, summer camps and various events at more than 160 locations in 25 countries.

As science continues to be of utmost importance to society, the Mad Science learning experience encourages scientific literacy in children aged 3 to 12, helping them better understand what science is and how it affects their world.

“Our programs aren’t about teaching memorization; we encourage learning by doing,” said Talitha Cere, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development. “Mad Science presents kids with a series of questions, the answers to which are found through experimentation. This helps kids experience science, instead of just reading about it in a textbook.”

Mad Science, in its earliest form, was founded in 1985 when Ariel and Ron Shlien, a pair of brothers with a love for science, began hosting after-school programs to teach kids about rockets. Recognizing how interactive activities stimulated a child’s curiosity, the Shlien brothers developed a science curriculum based around hands-on engagement that still remains the integral focus of the hundreds of different programs Mad Science offers today, all of which are aligned to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) curriculum objectives. Kids have the chance to learn about electricity, magnetism, optics, biology, and more.

The programs are competitively priced, with standard eight-week after-school programs.

Mad Science has become a respected leader in science education thanks to important partnerships within the scientific community, including a decade-long collaboration with NASA. With NASA’s support, the brand has developed a series of space-related programs that touch on technology, space travel and more. The programs are ever-evolving, and incorporate new information as it is discovered.

“We have a lot of competitors, but not one offers the breadth of interactive programming that we do,” said Kristiina Aro, Marketing Manager for Mad Science. “Mad Science’s focus on the entertainment side of science, and not just the educational aspect, is what makes us really different in the eyes of our customers. We get great feedback, year-after-year, about how much fun kids are having while they are learning,” Aro added.

Expanding its curriculum so every child has the opportunity to connect with their interests is key to Mad Science’s dominance in the enrichment segment. Recently, the brand launched an online coding program called MISSION: CODE and an engineering program called BRIXOLOGY, that uses LEGO bricks as a teaching tool. As the many fields of science continue to evolve, Mad Science will continue to invest in research and development and expand its program offering to inspire the next generation of future innovators.