I mentioned earlier this week that the Children’s Festival of Reading seemed to have expanded its footprint. One of the tentacles that stretched out from the main area on the north lawn spread to the foot of the Sunsphere. A temporary “Science Village” occupied the spot from the foot of the Sunsphere to the water feature at the center of the park.
I’ve never been mistaken for a scientist. I generally did the minimum required in all my science classes in school and college. I remember more science teachers I didn’t like than those that I did. I don’t ever remember being inspired by a science teacher. I dreaded the annual science project. But I wonder whether my life-long science aversion would have been different if I could have encountered someone like the people from The MUSE Knoxville.
The science experiments and exhibitions on the site were among the most heavily attended at the event. It’s understandable. As much as I love books and authors, the science exhibit featured exploding potatoes and robots. It’s pretty hard for a flesh-and-blood person to compete with that – unless maybe it was Mr. Potato Head and he personally exploded. But I digress. The point is the science on exhibit was great fun and it was easy to see the children thought so by the sheer numbers and the expression of wonder on their faces.
The on-site demonstrations were just a small sampling of what these guys have to offer. You may have read some of the articles about a group wanting to bring a science museum downtown. That was a couple of years ago and the possibility of a downtown or near-downtown museum remains a possibility.
In the interim, The Muse Knoxville has taken over operations of the location formerly known as the “Discovery Center” at Chilhowee Park. I went to the Discovery Center a time or two in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The primary thing I remember was the planetarium, which I thought was pretty awesome. I was with a group of children who were living in a shelter and they had a blast.
Fast forward a couple of decades and the place apparently needed an update. I spoke to Ellie Kittrell who said there have been a number of upgrades to the facility, the exhibits and the programming. The planetarium is still there and I’m thinking there are seats with mine and Urban Girl’s name on it for this summer.
A series of summer camps are being offered at the Chilhowee Park site (next to the Knoxville Zoo). Something is offered for children from age 3 to age 15 and the topics cover large swaths of science and are designed for high appeal. The duration of the camps range from a day to a week and the cost ranges from $40 to $200. Examples of camp topics includes 3-D Printing, Pre-school Discovery, Cool Chemistry, Chemistry Investigation, Crazy Contraptions, Robotics and more.
But the center is also open on a regular basis to drop-in visitors or groups. Current exhibits include four different programs in the planetarium, Kid Space, Build Space, Make Space, Light and Vision, Simple Machines, Sound and Energy. It’s open Tuesday through Saturday, opening at 9:00 AM each day (10:00 AM on Saturday) and closing at 5:00 PM. The cost is $4 – $5 with $2 additional for the planetarium shows.
So, the dream reported widely over a year ago has taken an interesting detour. Kittrell says the idea of a much larger, high profile center to bring in large numbers of children is still in the plans, though specifics aren’t clear at this time. The old Knoxville Convention Center – essentially the bottom floor of the Holiday Inn, whose front faces the World’s Fair Park was reported as the initial target space for the group, but that may not be the case any longer. Other possibilities near downtown are being explored.
Other cities such as Nashville and Memphis bring in hundreds of thousands of people to their science museums each year, which raises the question of whether the same thing or something similar could happen here. It’s interesting that for years downtown revitalization focused on finding that one major attraction that would bring everyone into the city. Times changed, the silver bullet was never found, and slower-paced organic growth supplanted the “big attraction” mindset. Now that we’ve had so much organic growth, maybe we’ve come full circle to the place that now we are ready to include such an attraction to our mix of downtown development. What do you think?