If you’re looking for someplace to have fun, learn something and get grossed out, stop by DiscoveryLab.
The massive Tulsa Tape Tunnel — made of 14 miles of duct tape — fills the main exhibit area of the museum, which opened in 2013 in the Owen Park community center building, 560 N. Maybelle Ave.
https://soundcloud.com/cary-aspinwall/listen-frontier-tulsa-childrens-museum
Beside it is a huge foosball game that takes 12 people to operate.
The fun, gross stuff in the museum comes courtesy of the Oklahoma Museum Network’s Grossology exhibit.
It includes a Toot Toot exhibit and a Snot, Snot exhibit, each utterly silly yet surprisingly informative.
In the Vomit Center, visitors are asked to show how the body produces a burp.
I failed on my first attempt, so think this one through before pushing the buttons.
DiscoveryLab made news recently when the George Kaiser Family Foundation pledged $10 million in matching funds to build a new facility at a A Gathering Place for Tulsa park.
DiscoveryLab is asking the city to allocate $10 million in Vision 2025 renewal funds for the project.
Another $20 million would be raised privately.
DiscoveryLab’s new home would be built on the southeast corner of 31st Street and Riverside Drive as part of Phase 2 of A Gathering Place.
The goal is to have it built by 2020.
That’s certainly Mike Vandiver’s wish.
DiscoveryLab’s executive director has seen the museum’s attendance exceed his wildest expectations. More than 300,000 people have visited the museum and science center since it opened in May 2013.
That’s 100,000 people more than projected.
The new museum would have 20,000 square feet of exhibit space – two and a half times what’s available at the Owen Park facility.
So bring the kids, and plan on having a good time yourself.
You might just learn something along the way.
“I like to say we’re putting the ‘wow’ in science for the kid inside all of us,” Vandiver said.
