Interested in science? Keep an "ion" Neutrino Day

Assemble your atoms because Saturday is Neutrino Day, a celebration of all things science.

Black Hills FOX Reporter Katrina Lim shows us what Sanford is doing to get everyone interested in this innovative field.

Today people were roaming around Lead for the 10th annual Neutrino Day.

The Sanford Underground Research Facility hosted several tours and hands-on acitivites throughout town in hopes of getting families into science.

"We're an underground research facility. We want people to get excited about science. We want people to be sort of our ambassadors for science so we bring them up here and we show them just how fun science can be and just how diverse science is," Constance Walter said, communications director, Sanford Underground Research Facility.

"Neutrino Day is filled with fun activities for the whole family, including robotics right behind me where kids get to learn to program a robot to see where it moves," Katrina Lim said.

Kids could enjoy other activities like eating liquid nitrogen-made ice cream, panning for gold, looking through a solar telescope, and much more.

Five-year-old Mason McMillan tried to navigate a robot during Neutrino Day.

"It was good and fun. I was trying to go to the hotel on it. It just had three things," Mason McMillan, five years old.

And they don't just want kids to be into science "periodically," they want them to love it all the time.

"I like science a lot because there's a lot of fun stuff in science like experiments and testing stuff," Will Johnston said, seven years old.

People could also watch demonstrations and live chat with scientists underground.

"Everything around us is science. Where did we come from? How did the universe get here? What are neutrinos? Why are they important? We want people to really start to understand the value of science," Constance Walter said.

Walter says since 2015, Sanford has helped educate more than 30,000 students.