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Title edit
Chabot Space & Science Center
Contact edit
- CHABOT SPACE & SCIENCE CENTER
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- OAKLAND CA
- United States 94619-2444
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- +1.5103367300
Description edit
Our Mission
Chabot Space & Science Center (CSSC) is an innovative teaching and learning center focusing on astronomy and the space sciences and the interrelationships of all sciences. Its observatory, planetarium, exhibits, and natural park setting are a place where a diverse population of students, teachers, and the public can imagine, understand, and learn to shape their future through science.
History
Chabot Space & Science Center is the continuation and expansion of a public observatory that has served San Francisco Bay Area schools and citizens with astronomy and science education programs for over 115 years. The institution began in 1883 as the Oakland Observatory, through a gift from Anthony Chabot to the City of Oakland. The original Oakland Observatory was located in downtown Oakland, and provided public telescope viewing for the community. For decades, it also served as the official timekeeping station for the entire Bay Area, measuring time with its transit telescope.
The observatory moved to its Mountain Boulevard location in 1915 due to increasing light pollution and urban congestion. In the mid-1960s, the facility was expanded considerably with the addition of a 90-seat planetarium, science labs and classrooms, a library, workshops, and a small exhibit room. Throughout this time, the Chabot Science Center, as it was renamed, was staffed mainly by Oakland Unified School District personnel and volunteers. In 1977, seismic safety concerns terminated public school students’ access to the original observatory facility. The observatory building remained open to the general public, but school activities were limited to outlying classroom buildings and the planetarium.
