LODI - Just minutes after it opened Friday morning, Lodi’s long-awaited downtown science museum had its first visitors. Gabriel Bullard, 6, and his little brother, 3-year-old Nico, were among the first children to step foot inside, and they soon were engrossed. They spent more than an hour jumping from one hands-on learning exhibit to the next.
At a machine that teaches about delayed speech, Gabriel talked into a microphone while Nico sat concentrating hard on what he heard through his headphones.
“Nico, do you hear me?” Gabriel asked.
“Yeah,” his brother replied.
“Nico, you are 3, right?”
“Yes.”
Their mother, Leslie Weiss, said she drove the family up from Stockton to cultivate her boys’ curiosity. “I don’t think there’s anything like this in the county,” she said.
It is that draw backers of the World of Wonders Science Museum had hoped for - and hope they can sustain.
For now, the museum’s opening will be short-lived. It will close at 4 p.m. Jan 4. Volunteer organizers said they do not have enough money to keep the center and its three dozen exhibits up and running for good.
But even with a limited run, Friday’s opening was significant for downtown Lodi. Supporters have long believed the attraction will help draw foot traffic to the city’s core and stimulate one of its largely dormant stretches.
By giving the public a glimpse inside, supporters hope they can attract more donors to make the place a full-time destination.
“This is a test for us,” said Sally Snyde, president of the museum’s volunteer board. “I’m just glad that the word is getting out.”
Residents and community activists pushed a science museum idea after the city failed to lure retail shops to the ground floor of Lodi’s downtown parking structure, built in 2002.
In 2006, city leaders decided to allow the group to rent the space if it could raise enough money upfront. Since then, the group steadily has sought donors.
Last year, the museum scored a three-year deal with the Exploratorium in San Francisco, a large, educational science center, to supply most of the exhibits.
Snyde said Lodi’s museum needs about $400,000 more to stay open year-round. In the meantime, the museum is booking birthday parties and, beginning in February, school field trips.
Within an hour of opening Friday, the museum was bustling with a couple dozen children and their parents while volunteers wearing bright green shirts helped them navigate the exhibits.
Some portions remain unfinished. A fighter jet simulator still was lacking software, but that did not stop children from jumping inside its cockpit.
Elk Grove resident Glenn Akutagawa, who brought his sons down for a visit, often takes education field trips as a family.
First impressions? “Small,” said his 15-year-old son, Kyle. “Looks like they have some really cool stuff here. It seems a lot of the stuff they have would be really cool for elementary school kids, things for them to play with.”
Contact reporter Daniel Thigpen at (209) 546-8254 or dthigpen@recordnet.com.
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12 28th, 2008| 
