Museum puts fun in science
HOT SPRINGS, Ark.—If science is an ever-evolving mechanism to discover the world around us, it follows that ways to experience science must adapt as time hums along.
You could say that’s the idea behind the revamped Mid-America Science Museum at the edge of Hot Springs. From its Marvelous Motion Gallery to its Skywalk and an exhibit area called Arkansas Underfoot, Mid-America revels in its dedication to immersing both young and old in the truths of science, even more so after renovations were completed earlier this year.
You can see it on an average weekday when kids romp around the Skywalk, exploring hemp rope netting outdoors as the state’s natural beauty beckons, or when they learn about gravity and laws of motion at a splashy, two-story water sculpture. You can even stand before a mighty Mastodon, magnificent and mysterious in replica form, that speaks to Arkansas’ distant past.
You see it when a grandfather, driving through town, takes his grandson to some of the same MidAmerica exhibits he remembers from years ago, the kid’s eyes showing a glimmer of wonder. Only this time, there’s much more to discover.
“Seeing kids, their faces light up all the time,” said Jim Miller, marketing director for the museum, as he gives a museum tour. As he puts it simply, it’s a good place to work. Here, you’re liable to hear laughter and squeals of enjoyment at any moment of the day.
Here at Mid-America, there aren’t just things to see. There are things to physically do everywhere you turn, whether it’s operate a zoetrope, manipulate a 3-D topo map, launch balls and see them illustrate the Bernoulli effect, read a book inside a tree or make packing peanuts hover in a Peanut Fountain.
When you walk into the new lobby, you’re greeted by the Marvelous Motion Gallery, which illustrates the study of movement and physics. Here, you can make those packing peanuts rise and fall or play with a sand pendulum.
“A lot of the exhibits are science exhibits but they’re also art pieces,” Miller said as he got the peanuts going. They’re collected in a circular contraption that has a column of air in the middle. When the peanuts fall into the tube, they rise. People control the air flow as the fountain shows how buoyancy works.
“In terms of basic education, everything in the museum is hands on,” Miller said, noting many of the exhibits were designed specifically for Mid- America and won’t be found anywhere else. Design collaboration was international, such as a Skywalk component designed by a Japanese woman.
The TinkerFest event, which normally takes place in June, is all about hands-on activities where museum staff situate about 50 tinkering stations for the kids to test. It has everything from green screen video to soldering jewelry together out of computer parts to origami, Miller said.
On this particular day, two school groups moved from exhibit to exhibit, students working at their own leisurely or quick pace. Mid-America draws students from as far away as Oklahoma and Texas. The majority of tourist visitors actually hail from Texas. With several educators on staff, Mid-America strives to have teachers out on the floor to work with visiting students.
The Bob Wheeler Science Skywalk is all new, offering an elevated pathway into the forest outdoors. Kids climb and walk on rope netting, look through a kaleidoscope or walk through mist released by staff. On a special bench with copper plates, two people sitting side by side can make music; with contact, people complete a circuit. Made from cedar, the Skywalk gives the museum something totally new.
“This is a great addition to the museum simply because it adds this new outdoor component that we didn’t have before,” Miller said. Because it can be lit up, the museum hopes to program more nighttime events. They’ve already held wedding receptions out there.
From here, you can watch people or simply gaze at the national park. The Natural State’s natural beauty becomes the focus. Two nature trails (one paved, one primitive) get you into the habitat itself.
“We’re surrounded by 22 acres of pristine woodland,” Miller said. Kids get to exercise and move around the Skywalk and trails, and, as he put it, learn about science without even realizing it. That’s sort of the modus operandi of many exhibits.
This vast renovation, funded by a $7.8 million Donald W. Reynolds Foundation grant and matching funds, was the first for Mid-America since it opened in 1979. “Science museums, I compare them to computers or cell phones,” Miller said. After a few years, he says, they kind of become obsolete. But that was also the charm of Mid-America. “It was kind of nostalgic for a lot of people, especially for people in the community that grew up coming here,” Miller said. Most people were blown away seeing the renovations, however. Last year in August, those renovations began. They were finished in March.
“It brought us into the 21st century,” Miller said.
The new two-story water sculpture, another new addition, allows plastic balls to balance on water fountains and travel a path, air and water moving them from one place to the next. They will pop up high above museum visitors at different points and descend into a watery whirlpool.
Have you seen the movie
“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”? If so, you’ve seen the wonderful Rowland Emett inventions Dick Van Dyke’s character was credited with making, Miller says. Here at Mid-America, the only things that aren’t hands-on are four of his kinetic art sculptures. They are, though, fantastic to see.
“These are actually really valuable machines,” Miller said of these inventive antiques.
They’re not new, though. Many exhibits were refurbished for the renovations, such as a cave to explore in the Arkansas Underfoot gallery. Standing in front of the cave is a massive quartz crystal found in Arkansas. It’s a 500-pound crystal cluster specimen of the state mineral.
One of the new stations at Arkansas Underfoot is dirty. Life in Mud may not seem exciting, but it’s literally dirt from the museum pond, explains Miller, shown in sort of a layered cross-section. It gives a look at the bacteria here in its various colors, which change over time.
“This is a unique exhibit gallery because it literally is all things Arkansas,” Miller said. Nearby at another station, kids sort through fossils, looking through a microscope to observe shells, shark’s teeth, corals, crabs, sea urchins and more up close.
Elsewhere, the Oaklawn Foundation Digital Dome Theater provides immersive 180-degree viewing of various movie programs, such as “Two Small Pieces of Glass” and “Back to the Moon for Good.” Using Hubble technology, it takes you to the stars. It can show Big Bang radiation and how the stars looked on the day you were born.
“Right now it’s the only one of its kind in the state,” Miller said. The museum aims to add original programs to be shown at the dome theater.
The museum’s Workshops area includes a theater for stop-motion animation films, some made by renowned moviemakers, Miller said. “This area is great because kids can actually make their own stop-motion animation and then save it to our YouTube channel, so then they can actually go back and watch them later if they want to,” he said.
Some of the specific stations blend old technology with new technology to get kids engaged.
“It’s a lot of that old school mixed with the new school that makes it such an eclectic and rich learning environment,” Miller said, referencing a film strip station. Kids can look up close, seeing each individual picture. Another throwback? A theremin instrument.
Oh, and there’s the most powerful conical Tesla Coil in the world, as judged by Guinness World Records. It’s 1.5 million volts. Miller says it’s still a major museum attraction.
A Tinkering Studio, similar to the one at Texarkana’s Discovery Place Children’s Museum but much larger in scope, allows children of all ages an opportunity to do just that: tinker. By tinkering, students learn to invent by experimentation. Like other exhibit spaces, hands-on learning is the idea.
Expect the Mid-America Science Museum to keep adapting.
“This renovation was just the beginning,” Miller said. “We’re not going to stay the same for another 30-something years. We’re going to keep changing and innovating.”
“It’s a lot of that old school mixed with the new school that makes it such an eclectic and rich learning environment.”
—Jim Miller