Science of the Times

Backers of a hands-on museum planned for the Civic Arts Plaza envision a regional hub where kids will learn that science can be fun. But their four-year journey toward that goal has been anything but child’s play.

Formed in March 1994, the Ventura County Discovery Center got a boost two years ago when the city agreed to provide land east of the civic complex for $1 a year. And last month residents weighed in on what they would like to see surrounding the museum, casting votes in a telephone survey for a design that would include restaurants and other amenities.

But the nonprofit group still has raised only a fraction of the approximately $18 million it needs to build and support the museum.

Discovery Center Executive Director Carrie Glicksteen, declining to say exactly how much has been raised, said the group only recently began seeking corporate and foundation donors but has had difficulties because the project still is in its infancy.

“We’re in a Catch-22,” Glicksteen said. “In order to go forward with the more definite plans that we need to attract funding, we need to bring in a museum consultant. But we need the funding to do that.”

The challenges, however, have not clouded the vision of what proponents hope the museum will accomplish: the merging of traditional education with the kind of activities that most children associate with recess or playtime. It is a vision that more than 200 children’s museums across the country have embraced.

This hands-on philosophy is epitomized by some of the plans for the Discovery Center museum. One element would be an outdoor science park and plaza, where children and adults could get a close-up look at life in a pond. The park also would give children a space to perform “really messy” science experiments, said museum booster and Amgen scientist Gary Elliott.

Another element would be an inventor’s laboratory, where children would don lab coats, sit on lab benches and tear apart donated machines to see how they work.

“Children can sit there and take things apart and find out what’s inside,” Elliott said. “Kids don’t get to do that anymore.”

Emphasizing Hands-On Learning

While the group has yet to determine which smaller exhibits will be in the museum, Glicksteen said an overarching goal is making the museum building an exhibit in itself. Among the possibilities, she said, are transparent walls that will give children and others an inside look at escalators or indoor plumbing while they use them.

The 60,000-square-foot museum would be built on land just east of Civic Arts Plaza. In accordance with the results of the recent citywide phone survey, the city now is looking for developers to build an entertainment complex around the museum that may include a retail store, several restaurants and a catering center.

Planners also foresee a 5,000-square-foot park and a large-format, IMAX-style theater.

The museum itself will be more than a place where children can express their inquisitive, and sometimes destructive, sides. Proponents say it will serve as a new kind of community center, much like a library, that will educate teachers, parents and children alike.

Like the Exploratorium in San Francisco and similar well-established children’s museums around the country, the proposed center would train science teachers and provide a space for school science experiments. The museum also would showcase local technology, showing residents what Amgen, Pacific Bell and other companies do and how they do it.

“We don’t want this to be a one-shot deal,” Elliott said. “We want it to be a community resource.”

The Discovery Center’s goal, while ambitious, is in line with an established nationwide movement that is changing centuries-old assumptions about what museums can and should do.

Children’s museums have always sought to stretch the definition of such institutions, said Sally Osberg, executive director of the San Jose Children’s Museum. “But in recent years they have really come into their own,” she said. “They really are in tune with the needs of children, families and communities in a way that many established cultural institutions are not.”

Hands-on learning is one area where children’s museums have been in front of the curve, Osberg said. “It’s no secret that we all learn by doing,” she said. “Probably 90% of our learning comes through experience.”

Aaron Goldblatt, vice president of exhibits at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum, said children’s museums, by their nature, also must reach beyond the traditional confines of their four walls. The Please Touch Museum has play and learning facilities in Philadelphia’s Family Court and at a public school, and it is developing a center in the city’s homeless services office.

“It’s part of our mission to serve kids, to provide learning and play activities where they are,” Goldblatt said.

Children’s museums are also getting involved in school projects. The California Science Center in Los Angeles is building an elementary school on its site, and two other museums in the state are heavily involved with charter school projects, according to the American Assn. of Museums.

Accessibility an Important Factor

Even without a museum building, the Ventura County Discovery Center has been active in schools and other public venues.

The group recently wrapped up a series of plays designed to entertain while they educate. The last one, “Much Ado About Trash,” taught children about the sources and problems of garbage.

The group also runs Family Science Nights at which organizers set up 30 to 40 hands-on science learning stations at local schools.

The center runs most of its activities with volunteer labor and start-up grants from individuals or companies.

It also charges for supplies at the science nights and collects admission for its plays.

Executive Director Glicksteen said the group will continue the plays and science nights even after it has a permanent home.

“It’s just one more way to make science accessible to people,” she said.

Accessibility is at the core of the proposed center, said Amgen scientist Elliott.

“It will provide an opportunity for kids from a range of populations, including low-income ones, to explore science in a fun and exciting environment,” he said.

“We’ll be providing a resource they really can only get maybe once a year if they go to the California Science Center.”

But the emerging breed of children’s museums teaches more than just the basics of science or history or art, supporters say.

“I think we travel the landscape between the formal academic classroom and the world of riding bikes and swinging on swings and learning to get along with people,” Osberg of the Children’s Discovery Museum said.

Elliott agreed.

“It’s not so much that we want to be an educational center as we want to be an inspirational center,” he said.

“In order to have success, there has to be failure. There has to be trial and error,” Elliott said.

“I think it’s good for kids to experience that and understand it’s part of science.”

Augmenting School Programs

Jerry Adlof also had broader goals in mind when he started Simi Valley’s Castle Earth Children’s Museum, an understated nonprofit project that offers a glimpse of what children’s museums can do.

Adlof said he and his wife, Tracey, founded Castle Earth after local schools began cutting funding for science programs.

“When schools got rid of science programs,” he said, “we started to bring science to them.”

The 3-year-old children’s museum--with its wide range of animals, exhibits and hands-on science booths--came later.

A group of first-grade students from Thousand Oaks’ University Elementary brought the museum to life last week when they touched, played with and asked about displays using magnets, sound and images.

Edwin Davis, 7, was perplexed by a miniature dinosaur that he could see but could not touch.

“What do you think that is?” asked his teacher, Michelle Turner. “Is it an image?”

“It’s a ghost,” Davis said, his fingers still struggling to clutch the holographic image.

During a short break from the constant cries of, “Look, Mrs. Turner, look,” the teacher said the hands-on experience bolsters learning in the classroom.

“It sparks their interest and they also have something to relate to,” Turner said. “It makes the learning connection even stronger.”

The Castle Earth Museum has been a labor of love, Adlof said.

“Every family asset went into this place,” he said. “That’s what it took to get this place open.”

Although he said he was enthusiastic about the Discovery Center museum, Adlof acknowledged that fund-raising would be a major hurdle for the $18-million project. “You have to be creative,” he said.

Discovery Center backers agree. Despite the difficult task they face raising money, boosters say they are optimistic the museum will eventually break ground.

“It’s a lot of money,” said Elliott, “but it’s pretty realistic for this area.”

Glicksteen said several local companies are reviewing donation proposals.

“I think we’re right on track with our plans,” Glicksteen said. “We think we can open the doors in about four years.”