Seattle Center Announces April Events

April is play month at Seattle Center, with a fun and lively line-up of child-friendly activities to take families through the traditional spring break period and beyond.

The campus is abuzz with youthful goings-on at destinations like Artists at Play, International Fountain, Space Needle and Pottery Northwest featuring Student Show & Sale, April 5-26. International Children's Friendship Festival, April 6-7, highlights the coming weekend and Movin' Around the World: Spring the coming week, April 6-12. World Rhythm Festival fills several campus venues Saturday, April 20, and Seattle Center Festál: Seattle Cherry Blossom & Japanese Cultural Festival returns April 26-28 to Fisher Pavilion and Armory.

Here are some additional opportunities to explore fun, family-oriented activities at Seattle Center this month:

Take time over the spring break to discover innovations and inventions that help create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life, immerse yourself in debates about education, health and poverty and take action on a cause you care about at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discover Center. The Center commemorates the 19th Annual Pacific Islander heritage month in Washington State, 4 p.m., Saturday, April 20, with an elders' welcome and blessing and a sacred tuba ceremony. The event offers Pacific Islander music and spoken word and traditional foods. Free and open to the public with RSVP.

Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m., presents several current and traveling exhibits for music, popular culture and science fiction enthusiasts of all ages. MoPOP holds its annual Spring Scout Day, Saturday, April 27, when visitors are encouraged to bring their troop, family and friends for an activity and leave with a fun patch (while supplies last). For more information, call 206-262-3420.

Pacific Science Center offers daily exhibits and activities in its many galleries and theaters. PSC's Laser Dome offers a packed roster of shows that feature stunning laser imagery and powerful sound. Visitors may also blast-off to the outer reaches of the universe, explore the planets in our own solar system or learn about recent discoveries in the Willard Smith Planetarium. Or learn the latest on efforts to eradicate malaria in Uganda, while lifting communities out of poverty at Eradicating Malaria: The Big Fight Against Little Mosquitos, 7 p.m.-9 p.m., Tuesday, April 9.

Kids can explore where food comes from and how it tastes, mix ingredients and create exothermic reactions and small explosions at Seattle Children's Museum's spring camp, Eat. Play. Learn! A special Earth Day Celebration, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday, April 21, allows participants to explore what it means to use "clean energy," with readings by local artist and author, Casey Ailes, and recycled super heroes. Discovery Days Camps are designed to meet a child's varied needs, in half or full-day and even full week increments. Each camp day has a theme, along with science, art and cultural programming and activities for ages 4 to 10.

Seattle Children's Theatre presents Balloonacy, a wordless, situational comedy, in which The Old Man, who lives alone, prepares to celebrate his birthday. To his surprise, the solitary festivities are interrupted when a playful Red Balloon floats into his apartment, shaking up his normal routine, through May 5 in Eve Alvord Theatre, and The Diary of Anne Frank, a sobering true story of eight people living in hiding in Nazi occupied Holland during World War II, as seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Anne Frank, through May 19 in Charlotte Martin Theatre.

For more information on events and activities throughout the year at Seattle Center, visit: www.seattlecenter.org or call 206-684-7200.

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