Scientists will be taking it to the streets in spring

A man in a baseball cap parked a big telescope in an unlikely location recently: the sidewalk at Second and Chestnut Streets. He offered the nighttime crowd in Old City a chance to look at the heavens, but he was also on a scouting mission of sorts.

Derrick Pitts was testing the city's appetite for a serious avalanche of science.

It was just the merest taste of what is coming here next spring. On Monday, the Franklin Institute and two dozen partners plan to announce the first Philadelphia Science Festival, a two-week celebration of science starting April 15.

The festivities include an outdoor science carnival on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a science night with the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, movies, lectures, hands-on experiments, demonstrations, and quiz shows. Expect to run into scientists throughout the city where you'd least expect them: restaurants, bars, and, yes, sidewalks.

Pitts, the institute's chief astronomer, promised that sidewalk astronomy will be on the agenda. During his three-hour trial run Sept. 18, close to 200 people stopped to take a look at Jupiter and the moon, Pitts said.

"People were really jazzed about being able to see this," he said. "Groups of people would stand around and talk about it themselves, and then look again."

The museum started to think about the idea at the suggestion of an official from the MIT Museum. The two institutions then joined with two California universities - the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Francisco - in applying for a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The Franklin Institute's share of the $3 million grant is $550,000, which will help pay for planning and organizing the first two years of the Philadelphia event, said Dennis Wint, the institute's president and chief executive officer. Festivals also will take place in the three other cities.

Local participants include a dozen museums and universities, the Philadelphia Zoo, the city school district, and business partners, led by presenting sponsor Dow Chemical Co. In addition to boosting scientific literacy, the idea is to foster interest in technology careers as the world economy becomes increasingly global, Wint said.