Frontiers of Science

The opening of the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana puts Orange County on the crest of a national movement of hands-on museums reshaping the way children come to understand the world around them.

“Originally, way, way back when museums started, they were private collections that somebody wanted to preserve,” said Ellen Griffee of the Assn. of Science-Technology Centers in Washington, D.C. “They were often collections behind glass and you looked and you marveled and you wondered.”

At that point, people weren’t thinking about what to do with children’s restless and curious hands, except to keep them from making fingerprints on the glass.

“Also, years ago it used to be only the major cities--Boston, Chicago, San Francisco--that had these centers,” Griffee said. “Now you’re seeing all these mid-sized cities with centers: Pierre, South Dakota; Boise, Idaho; Norwich, Vermont; Hickory, North Carolina; and now here comes Orange County.”

The rapid growth of science centers, in part, can be measured by the association’s membership.

The group had 229 members in 1987, 423 members in 1993 and has 535 now.

The science centers today not only engage visitors in trying things out for themselves but also try to develop relationships with their communities. They look to be centers where children, families and schools can come and partake.

“Think of a library,” Griffee said. “You see parents with little children who can’t even read yet in libraries, pointing out pictures in books.

“You see teens doing school projects there and you also see retired seniors who go back again and again,” she said. “Now replace the word ‘library’ with ‘science center’ and that’s what they are now meant to be.”

Successful centers, Griffee said, focus on the science and technology relevant to the lives of the communities they serve.

When completed, the Santa Ana center will be much smaller than some better-known museums, including the Exploratorium of San Francisco and the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

The $130-million Los Angeles center, in Exposition Park, encompasses 245,000 square feet and has a seven-story Imax theater. Since its opening in February, 700,000 people have lined up to see Tess, the 50-foot robot that lectures on human biology, visit a walk-in microscope and check out a virtual-reality space docking simulator.

By contrast, the Santa Ana center is 59,000 square feet and officials expect 350,000 visitors in its first year.

The Santa Ana center, however, also has a giant display: a 400,000-pound giant cube that appears to balance on one point. (Two other points actually are supported by the science center building.)

And both the Los Angeles and Santa Ana science centers have about 100 exhibits, though they vary dramatically in scale.

Science Education in Demand

Nonetheless, smaller centers such as the one in Santa Ana do not need to compete with massive ones, experts said.

“We actually feel very good about the Orange County center,” said Jeffrey Rudolph, executive director of the California Science Center.

“Our feeling is there is plenty of need for science education and technology education.

“In many ways, institutions like us are not really competing with each other so much as with how people spend their leisure time--hopefully it will inspire people, if they have a good experience, to come visit us.”

One example of a science center that has kept its focus local is the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. The Tech, which opened Oct. 31, is a mango-colored monument to Silicon Valley inventions.

“We have an exhibit that simulates a bobsled ride, and a lot of people say, ‘Oh, it’s a ride,’ but it’s really not,” said San Jose center spokesman Miguel Salinas. “What you’re experiencing is the real technology developed to train the U.S. Olympic bobsled team.”

Other exhibits explain the magic behind mundane items--the computer chips that run electric shavers or coffeepots, or computer-aided design technology used to tailor a high-tech bicycle to a specific rider.

“It’s not just about allowing visitors to play with cool machines,” Salinas said. “We’re seeking an emotional reaction to a vision--which was to create a cultural center for Silicon Valley.”

In Santa Ana, guests will experience science “Southern California style” with showcases that pay tribute to the aerospace industry and the geological diversity of the region.

The Quake Zone will help visitors understand seismic activity, the Sun Stage explains the science of fire and explosions, and at the Exploration Station, visitors can pull apart household items such as toasters and hair dryers to see how they work and then put them back together again.

“In Santa Ana, they’ll need to serve both inner city audiences and suburban audiences, so the idea will be to be responsive to both,” Griffee said.

The association typically sees affluent communities, such as Orange County, turn to a science center as a supplement to their schools.

“We’re finding that elementary school teachers are turning to science centers and saying, ‘Help me, I’m required to teach electricity in the fifth grade, what do I do?’ ”

The Santa Ana center is ready. Working with schools will be a significant part of its mission, officials said.

Discovery Center staff will visit classrooms to give lectures on astronomy, electricity and the three states of matter--gases, liquids and solids--among other subjects.

Also, the center has been awarded a $3-million grant from the Beckman Foundation to train elementary school teachers in science and to provide classroom materials.

“We have teacher packets made out so that even before schools bring a class to see the center, they can prepare the kids for learning about what they will see,” said Melissa Centeno, marketing manager at the center.

Other museums in urban areas that also serve a wider suburban community say reaching out to schools has been central to their popularity.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, unique to the region because of its specific focus, nonetheless takes great pains to reach out to schools.

“Our audience comes from as far away as Riverside County,” said Gina Ward, spokeswoman for the museum. “But we work very, very closely with schools and teachers--not only with field trips here but going out to different schools with interactive experiences for the kids.”