Published July 27, 2006
Science Centre opens its doors to Weston Family facility
Science Centre opens its doors to Weston Family facility
Family Innovation Centre has 50 interactive displays geared for 14 to 24 year olds
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The Ontario Science Centre is hoping to draw teenagers and young adults to the Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue facility through the opening of the Weston Family Innovation Centre.
The centre, which opened to the public yesterday, provokes young people to solve problems and to create through science.
The 50 interactive displays are designed to attract the demographic of 14 to 24 year olds, said Lesley Lewis, CEO of the Ontario Science Centre.
The Ontario Science Centre is hoping to draw teenagers and young adults to the Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue facility through the opening of the Weston Family Innovation Centre.
The centre, which opened to the public yesterday, provokes young people to solve problems and to create through science.
The 50 interactive displays are designed to attract the demographic of 14 to 24 year olds, said Lesley Lewis, CEO of the Ontario Science Centre.
“Science is not just for children,” she said. “We are reaching beyond our traditional audience and reaching into the teens and 20s.”
Visitors to the Weston Family Innovation Centre can touch screens to make music, make shoes out of various materials, take apart and assemble phones, typewriters and printers and watch as water bubbles appear as a piano is played.
“It’s cool,” said 13-year-old Jessica MacDonald as she tried to make a sentence out of random words stuck to a board. “I always thought the science centre was for kids, but this is something for me and my friends.”
Nine-year-old Paul Kelly agreed.
“I can make the robot move,” he said, navigating knobs that made a robot bend and wave.
James Burton was busy folding paper to turn into an airplane to shoot up one of the air tunnels.
“Who doesn’t like to touch things and make things?” asked the 15-year-old. “I like science, but this is at a different level.”
The Weston Family Innovation Centre is the cornerstone of the Ontario Science Centre’s $47.5-million revitalization project known as Agents of Change, the most significant transformation in the science centre’s 37-year history.
The Weston family made a $15 million donation through their foundation, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, and the provincial government kicked in $16.5 million.
