By rcoetsee@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 03/18/2015 10:53:22 AM
PITTSBURG -- Los Medanos College will entertain the public with an open house Saturday to celebrate its four decades of service.
The event, which is free and open to all ages, will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2700 E. Leland Road, Pittsburg.
Parking also will be free.
In addition to celebrating its new Student Services Center that was finished in January, the community college will offer campus tours along with stage performances featuring scenes from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," dance numbers, and music by faculty members and college's jazz band.
LMC also is organizing workshops on how to succeed in college and prepare for various careers.
Visitors can look around some of the academic departments, watch planetarium shows and see welders and pottery makers in action.
For younger visitors, there will be chemistry experiments that involve exploding gummy bears and the opportunity to make "elephant toothpaste."
Other kid-friendly activities include Mexican bark painting and a mock archaeology dig.
Physics experiments, hands-on biology activities and the chance to fashion DNA bracelets are also part of the science-related fare.
Representatives of student clubs and other organizations will be on hand as will the fire truck used in LMC's firefighter training courses.
And there's more: Nursing students will take people's blood pressure while others demonstrate American Sign Language.
Activity booths, the library and art gallery open at 10 a.m.; workshops and demonstrations will start at 11 a.m. when academic departments also will be accessible.
Food will be available for purchase from a couple of food trucks and the cafeteria as well as from student clubs that will be offering snacks and drinks.
Now one of 112 community colleges in the state, LMC opened in 1974 on a 120-acre site near the boundaries of Pittsburg and Antioch and now operates a satellite campus in Brentwood as well.
More information about the college's history and open house can be found at www.losmedanos.edu/openhouse.
Reach Rowena Coetsee at 925-779-7141.