Dino dollars
Mid-America receives grant for dinosaur exhibit
Mid-America Science Museum received a
$400,000 grant from the Oaklawn Foundation Friday to create a dinosaur-themed outdoor exhibit.
The grant will fund most of the cost of the exhibit, titled “Oaklawn Foundation DinoTrek,” which will consist of dinosaur replicas placed along nature trails and at the front of walkways in the wooded land behind the museum building.
“We’ve been really excited about it, and we’re even more excited that we’re absolutely
100 percent certain that we’re gonna be getting the funding,” Mid-America Marketing Director Jim Miller said Friday.
DinoTrek, according to a news release, will contain lifelike dinosaur replicas placed at the front of and along nearly 2,000 feet of concrete-paved pathways and nature trails that will meander throughout the museum’s property.
The exhibit will be split into two sections — one will be next to the museum’s front parking lot to draw visitors in, while the other will be spread throughout a pathway in the woods that will be adjacent to the museum’s Bob Wheeler Science Skywalk.
The first section will display two dinosaurs to draw visitors in. The second will consist of two loops that display 18 dinosaurs throughout the woods that will include a 16foot Brachiosaurus, a walking T-Rex and a
20-foot Pteranodon.
The area surrounding each dinosaur will consist of ferns, rocks, Spanish moss and other plant materials, and contain audio speakers projecting how the dinosaur might have sounded.
“It’ll really add to the outdoor atmosphere with the skywalk and the nature trails,” Miller said.
Miller said the museum has housed traveling dinosaur exhibits in the past. Diane LaFollette, the museum’s executive director, said in the release that the museum’s visitors “have always loved” these exhibits.
“We have visitors every year, they come to the museum, and sometimes that’s one of the first things they ask, is ‘Where are the dinosaurs?’,” Miller said. “Now, when they ask, ‘Where are the dinosaurs?’ we can now give them a visitors map of the DinoTrek, and they can go on a walk behind the museum.”
The museum plans to use DinoTrek to “extend the learning opportunities by incorporating the exhibition and its content in summer camps, after school programs, school group visits and in other educational programming,” the news release said.
LaFollette said the exhibit “will provide the opportunity for our guests to explore botany, biology, geology, ecology and natural history, which are subjects that are not currently covered in the interior exhibitions.”
Miller said DinoTrek will cost $500,000 to complete, and the museum will match some of the costs within the grant to meet the full cost. He said the exhibit is expected to open to the public on Memorial Day weekend to kick off the museum’s summer season.
“It should be fun,” Miller said. “We are grateful to the Oaklawn Foundation for their generous grant that will make this happen,” LaFollette said in the release. “We anticipate it will become a major attraction for the museum and the Hot Springs community.”