Durango Discovery Museum continues to push the outer limits on fun by adding new exhibits that allow kids to make air rockets and air race cars, hold baby chicks and build their own structures and even robots in an “innovation playground” of foam blocks, tubes and other pieces.
Mad Scientist and Visitor Tech India Giudici said the museum at 1333 Camino del Rio helps change people’s concept of a museum from being a hands-off place.
“When they hear interactive museum it piques their interest,” she said. “It breaks down the parameters of what people hear when they hear ‘museum’,” Giudici said.
“It’s about making positive associations between science and fun,” said Joe Lounge, the museum’s exhibits manager.
Lounge, a former associate professor and director of Teacher Education at Fort Lewis College, said especially for kids, the Discovery Museum helps them develop “their feeling they can understand things.”
“Some kids are afraid to try things” and the museum helps give them “a sense of accomplishment which is good for their self-concept,” Lounge said.
Giudici, who has an engineering degree, also said visitors of all ages don’t need a science background to appreciate the museum’s exhibits.
“I like it because you learn a lot of science and a lot of kids like science,” said 9-year-old Jazzy Wales of Durango. She said she got to learn the parts of an eyeball by dissecting one from a sheep and also learned how to program a robot.
The live chicks are only at the museum for about a week. A hatching on April 7 introduced visitors to 13 quail who have already gone to a farm, as will the chickens.
Giudici said the chicken exhibit includes an incubator with two eggs in it as of Sunday, along with lots of fun facts about the fowl. For instance, once eggs are laid, chickens hatch in about 21 days. They become adults in about six months when the hens can lay eggs.
Visitors have two choices with the air rockets, she said. One alternative is to use provided plastic bottles of about a third of a liter to shoot up a 27-foot tube after pumping an air pump up to 10 to 15 pounds per square inch.
The second option to make a paper rocket using a template and scissors provided, and then shoot those up the clear plastic tubes.
There is a similar procedure for the air-powered cars. Using 1-liter soda bottles, museum-goers can add different-colored nozzles that make the cars go different speeds, Giudici said. Rocket car-makers also add strap-on wheels and can modify the cars with fins, a paper nose cone or other accoutrements.
The cars are then placed on a grooved track of about 18 feet and air from a three-speed blower will push the cars to the end of the track, Giudici said.
Nine-year-old Zoe Zarko of Durango competed in a rocket-car race with her mother, Erin, who just happens to teach science at Farmington High School. Mom won, but she said it’s important to show support for the museum, and her family has a membership.
The Zarkos, including Benjamin, Zoe’s 6-year-old brother, come to the museum several times a month. The family joined the museum when it was still the Children’s Museum of Durango at another location.
Among summer activities is a Garden Sprouts program for ages 3 to 5 in which youngsters grow their own edible plants. Other programs include summer camps including a “bug camp,” catapults, smoke ring making (with dry ice) and windmills.
Giudici said in about three weeks the museum will have a food cart selling gourmet hot dogs and snow cones.
The museum is open seven days, but is closed for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Lounge said. Information about exhibits, programs, volunteer opportunities and donations is available at www.durangodiscovery.org, or by calling 259-9234.
rgalin@durangoherald.com
