The Saskatchewan Science Centre has reached its 35-year milestone and is marking the occasion with a week-long celebration.
This week, the science centre is hosting ‘Discovery Week’, filled with activities from earth day to their popular adult science night.
Sandy Baumgartner, Saskatchewan Science Centre CEO, said they plan on bringing back some of people’s favorite activities.
“It’s just really a week filled with nostalgia and celebrating 35 years of science and fun,” she said. “We’re bringing back some of the favorite activities (and) demonstrations.
“We’re ending the night with a huge demonstration duel between some of our staff who are going to help each other in terms of their science demonstrations on the exhibit floor. So, it’ll be a lot of fun.”
The story of the science centre started back in 1978, when a group of professional young women were part of a service club called the Junior Service League. The club wanted to establish a participatory, interactive science museum.
“They put proposals together in this building … And they went to SaskPower and the provincial government and said, ‘We believe that this is important in our community.’ And that’s how we started,” said Baumgartner.
“Their dream became a reality, and we opened our doors on April 25th, 1989. And then our story continued.”
The centre’s director of programming, Jesse Searcy, said the nostalgia of working at the Saskatchewan Science Centre is amazing.
“Every day I think about the people that taught me about science when I was here, and it’s really special to think about how that is now, the experience that I get to give to others every single day,” said Searcy.
“I love being able to come up the stairs to my office every day and then walk past the bubble pit and see some bubbles. If I really feel like it, I can stop and be a child for 30 seconds and make a bubble and be that same seven- or eight-year-old that I was when I came here for the first time.”
The story of the Imax theatre began in 1991 so as part of their celebratory week, they will be showing The Dream is Alive which was the first movie to be shown at the Imax theatre. This will run until April 27.
Every year, the Saskatchewan Science Centre calculated they have received at least 5 million visitors including about 20,000 school children that attend as part of a school visit.