Found a cool leaf or a shiny rock on your travels? A local science centre wants you to do science to it in exchange for some nature-themed prizes.
The new Nature Exchange gallery opens at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton today. The gallery is a mini-laboratory that encourages kids to bring in natural artifacts, research them and trade that research for bugs, shells, gemstones and other curiosities.
Media and Edmonton-area students previewed the gallery Thursday.
This gallery is the last piece of the science centre’s ongoing renovation and replaces the old Discoveryland play area, said science centre president Alan Nursall. (The new CuriousCITY play area is down the hall and opened back in March.)
“It’s a place that rewards curiosity and knowledge," he said, and a powerful learning tool that the science centre has wanted to build for years.
The gallery features a bevy of bugs, furs, corals, fossils, rocks and other natural oddities that guests can study using microscopes. It’s also the new home of the science centre’s live animals, which include a corn snake, sugar glider, tarantula and tiger salamander.
Trading in science
The core of the gallery is the Trading Centre, which is meant to get guests interested in scientific research and the natural world, said staff scientist Marie McConnell. It’s one of 12 such facilities at science centres in North America.
“What we’re asking folks to do is go out in nature, find cool things, learn about them and bring them into the Trading Centre to trade,” McConnell said.
McConnell said “cool things” can be anything you’re interested in, and don’t even have to be physical objects: if you’ve got a cool photo of a buffalo or a storm, those work too. Most of the items brought in so far have been bark, rocks and pine cones.
The centre wants to teach responsible collecting, so it won’t accept any living or dead animals or parts thereof, as those play important ecological roles, McConnell said. Bird nests are also out, as is anything from a restricted area such as a provincial or national park. Photos or sketches of these items are acceptable, as are bugs that died of natural causes.
Guests will analyse, interpret and discuss these items with Trading Centre staffers, and get points based on the research they present, McConnell said. Those points can be exchanged for various Alberta natural items, such as pussy willows, shiny shells, sparkling mineral formations and items turned in by other guests.
This trading process leads kids through a simplified version of the scientific method, where they start with a question, research it and share their discoveries with others, McConnell said. It also helps build basic science skills such as observation, comparison and microscopy.
Corbyn Kowalski-Selsky of Edmonton, 10, said he’d earned 350 points through his finds as of Thursday. He had his eye on a chunk of purple amethyst the size of his head, which was priced at 200,000 points.
“Some of these things are expensive,” he noted, but he hoped to pool his points with a friend.
Kowalski-Selsky said he enjoyed exploring nature and liked how he could study the fine details of furs and minerals at the gallery using its microscopes.
“I find science really cool, and you use it in your everyday life,” he noted, citing baking and the biology of walking as examples.
The new gallery opens June 29 at 9 a.m. Visit telusworldofscienceedmonton.ca for details.
