Newly renovated Mid-America Science Museum does not want visitors to keep hands to themselves

mid-america science museum
mid-america science museum

Hot Springs Mid-America Science Museum

500 Mid-America Blvd., Hot Springs. Hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and 1-6 p.m. Sundays during the peak season (Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend) and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday- Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sundays during the off season.

Admission: $10 for adults; $8 for children 3-12, seniors 65 and up, teachers with school identification and all military; children under 2 are free.

Admission to the Tesla Show: $3 per person

Admission to Oaklawn Foundation Digital Dome Theater presentations: $6 per person

Memberships: $60 per person, $85 for a family of up to five members

(800)632-0583

midamericamuseum.org

HOT SPRINGS -- "Please do not touch" signs? Velvet ropes separating visitors from exhibits? These things are not found here. The bright, shiny, new, and visually engaging contents inside the Mid-America Science Museum -- minus the four pieces of rare kinetic art sculpture -- invite being touched.

Getting up close and personal is the name of the game in this hands-on gallery.

The museum, which opened in 1979, recently underwent a 21st-century renovation, thanks in large part to a $7.8 million capital grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, awarded in 2011 with a $1.6 million matching grant required.

Through one of its programs, the Children's Discovery Initiative, the foundation has also funded five additional museums in Arkansas -- in Little Rock, Smackover, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff and Bentonville.

"This was the same grant that helped renovate the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock," explains Diane LaFollette, executive director of the Mid-America Science Museum. "It's part of a bigger program they really believe in." The goal is to offer visitors a better understanding of science through everyday experiences.

The 57,000-square-foot museum is divided into two wings, connected by a glass-enclosed bridge that spans the outside stream. The museum, which attracted 88,000 visitors in the 12 months before it closed for its remodeling in August, anticipates 150,000 in the 12 months after its March 7 grand reopening.

The result of the seven-month renovation? Those living in and near Garland County now have a facility comparable to the Museum of Discovery in their own backyard. And it's quite the sprawling, scenic backyard.

Unlike the Little Rock museum, which is tucked into the heart of downtown, the Hot Springs museum is set on 21 woodsy acres. Its newly

constructed Bob Wheeler Science Skywalk allows visitors to explore, interact and immerse themselves in the natural setting.

LaFollette says, "Half of the money went to creating a dome theater inside and a skywalk outside, which stretches out 240 feet out into the woods. ... The skywalk is raised 40 feet off the ground at its highest point and has some fun nets to play on. You can look out onto the property and experience a treehouse panorama halfway across."

More refreshing and modernizing has taken place inside as well, with the other half of the remodeling budget set aside for more than 100 hands-on exhibits, 16 of which are original and have been refurbished.

"It's very nice," says Steve Garrett of Little Rock, who was visiting the remodeled Hot Springs museum with his 10-year-old daughter, Olivia.

"We've kept and refurbished a lot of the classic exhibits, which we opened with in 1979," LaFollette says of the museum, which was originally owned by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism and is now a nonprofit organization run by an independent board of directors. "Those include the gravity tower, which rings a bell, and the ice cone, and the four Rowland Emett machines, which are all back on display."

The kinetic art sculptures were created by Frederick Rowland Emett, an English artist and tinkerer who created several pieces of work for the classic 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

"He used art and engineering together, which complements what we do here beautifully. We were able to verify that three of the ones we have were used in the movie," LaFollette says, referring to "Visi-vision Machine," "Little Dragon Carpet Sweep," and "Hushaby Hot-Air Rocking Chair." Jerry Porter, the museum's first executive director, became friends with the artist, who lived from 1906 to 1990, and eventually bought the works from him.

NEW AND IMPROVED

The museum's replica of a cave, which many Arkansans growing up in the 1980s and 1990s may remember crawling through as children, has also been cleaned up and refreshed.

"It's our most popular exhibit," LaFollette says.

The new Oaklawn Foundation Digital Dome Theater seats up to 50 and offers full-dome projection-style films in a 180-degree viewing area.

"The theater is like a planetarium and we can show movies there," LaFollette says. "We can customize programming through the solar system and can have live feeds from NASA, which can be broadcast to students there."

The film, shown nine times daily, costs $6 per person on top of admission charges.

One of the films being shown during the museum's grand re-opening -- Back to the Moon for Good, about the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition -- lasted 24 minutes and was initially engaging. But about midway through the film, narrated by actor Tim Allen, it began to feel more like a promotional spot with the Google logo displayed often and prominently.

Meanwhile, in the theater space next door, for an extra $3 per person, the Tesla Coil presentation is shown six times daily. While my family considered the Tesla a better value than the film we saw, those on a budget should take note that choosing to experience both will nearly double their original admission costs.

"I miss the [submarine] simulator," piped up one little boy attending the 15-minute Tesla presentation. "But there's lots of new cool stuff."

The remodeling brought more than 60 new exhibits, all created by Global Studios at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Five of the new exhibits are unique to the Hot Springs museum.

The Marvelous Motion Gallery, where visitors can study the basic concepts of physics, with natural phenomena such as wave motion, kinetic energy and gravity, is new.

Four workshops fill the lower floor of the west wing. The Force and Energy Workshop features a vintage steam engine, infrared imaging, and an oversize gravity tower. Nearby, a 10-foot-tall climbing structure anchors the Rhythm and Patterns Workshop, where children and adults can explore how math applies to daily lives. Meanwhile, the Animation Workshop takes a look at stop-motion animation using computers, 16mm film and a variety of zoetropes. The Fluid Motion Workshop is a two-story, interactive water tower.

The water tower proves to be a big hit on opening day with young and old.

"It was my favorite," Olivia says. "It was cool to see the colorful plastic balls shoot way up in the air." She adds about another nearby exhibit: "It was also fun to limbo under the spinning rope."

Near the cave is a sand, rain and terrain exhibit. As visitors create mountains and valleys (and bodies of water if they dig deep enough), a computer connected to the exhibit senses the elevation and adds lights representing a variety of terrain and precipitation, including snow.

"This is a very popular exhibit," LaFollette says. The crowd of children and adults gathered around, exploring it with their hands in the sand, serves as confirmation.

This area is titled Arkansas Underfoot. Nearby is a fossilized version of a mastodon and a large tree representing Arkansas' forests, with a reading nook inside.

"We jokingly call it our dirt gallery," says Jim Miller, the museum's director of marketing. "It focuses on what comes out of the dirt, what grows in the dirt and what goes back into the dirt."

Style on 03/17/2015

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