This past week we heard from Alan Nursall, President and CEO of Telus World of Science. Alan thanked us for the sensory back packs and read a note that he had recently received from a mother who had recently visited the Telus World of Science with her nine year old son. She said that the backpack had really helped him to be able to enjoy their visit to the Science Centre. Alan told us that the Science Centre opened in Edmonton in 1984 and that when he came to it in 2014 they were thinking about how to update it to best serve the City. The plan that was decided upon was called the Aurora Project, which was an ambitious multi year program to completely update the facility. At that time they asked the city for twelve million dollars and since then they have raised forty one million dollars towards the renovation. This renovation which began in 2016 is almost complete now. They plan to be done in early 2022. The Science Centre space has been expanded to twenty thousand sq ft. housed in the new Cardinal building and includes many new or reimagined galleries including CuriousCITY (for children eight and under), The Science Garage (with hands on experiments), The Nature Exchange, The Health Zone in the Allard Family Gallery, a reimagined S.P.A.C.E. Gallery and a new Arctic Exhibit in the Newell Gallery. The renovations also included a completely renovated state of the art Zeidler Dome. Alan told us that the Telus World of Science is the second largest ticketed admissions facility in Alberta after the Calgary Zoo. In 2019 (pre COVID) they had 560,000 ticketed admissions. They also have about 90,000 students visit per year and have recently put 30,000 students through online school programs and 1,000 students through online summer programs. Their hope is to be able to inspire young people to become thinkers and creators. They also take part in many projects that bring science to the general public around the province such as the dark sky event that takes place in Jasper every fall. We would like to thank Alan for his very interesting presentation and look forward to being able to work with them in some small way again in the future. |
