[photo credit: Pasadena Public Library]
The program, called Molecular Mysteries, is a free science session at the Pasadena Public Library’s Hastings Branch in which Caltech graduate students guide children ages 7 to 11 through the world of the atom and let them build molecules by hand. According to the library’s Off the Shelf newsletter, it runs on two Tuesdays — July 28 and August 25 — at 4:00 p.m.
The Hastings Branch sits on East Orange Grove Boulevard in eastern Pasadena, a few miles from the Caltech campus, whose graduate and doctoral students turn up across the library’s summer lineup. The same newsletter lists Caltech doctoral students running a math program, Number Ninjas, at the La Pintoresca Branch, and a Caltech scientist, Dr. Jess Kanwal, leading a STEM-and-dance club for teens at the Jefferson Branch. The library’s programs are listed as free and open to the public.
Molecular Mysteries is aimed squarely at elementary-age children, listed for ages 7 to 11. The library asks families to register in advance through its online calendar rather than simply dropping in. For families who need accommodations, the newsletter asks for at least 72 hours’ notice, directed to the branch hosting the program.
The session arrives during a busy stretch for the Hastings Branch, which reopened July 1 after a construction project. According to the newsletter, the work added a newly built corridor in the reading area and freed up the branch’s meeting room to serve as a dedicated space for programs like this one, without foot traffic passing through. The branch is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
The program also lands in the final weeks of the library system’s summer, which ran a Summer Reading Program from June 13 through August 1. Meanwhile, the system’s Central Library on East Walnut Street remains closed for a seismic retrofit and renovation that the library expects to reach substantial completion in 2028, with youth and branch programming distributed across the remaining locations in the interim.
If you go: Molecular Mysteries meets at the Hastings Branch Library, 3325 East Orange Grove Boulevard, Pasadena, on Tuesday, July 28, and Tuesday, August 25, at 4:00 p.m. The program is free and open to children ages 7 to 11; registration is required through CityOfPasadena.net/Library/Calendar. For accessibility requests, the library asks for at least 72 hours’ notice; the branch phone is (626) 744-7262.
The atoms will still be invisible when the afternoon ends. The molecules the children carry out in their heads will not be.
