Hi, you're listening to Cultivate
Curiosity, a podcast
that inspires the next generation to stay
curious. Cultivate Curiosity is brought to
you by
the Emerald Coast Science Center, a
nonprofit, interactive science museum and
STEAM educational facility in Fort Walton
Beach, Florida.
This podcast is perfect for anyone curious
about the world we live in, because
you never know what we'll talk about
next.
Let's get started with this week's
episode. Hi. I'm Jacie, the Emerald Coast
Science Center's Social Media
Coordinator.
Hi, I'm Diane. I'm the Director at
the Science Center. And hi, I'm Harley.
I'm the Community Affairs Coordinator and
educator at the science center.
So this week we are talking about
how we got to now. So I
want to pass it over to Diane
because she knows a lot of the
history about the Science Center.
Well, the Science Center was actually
started by the Junior League in 1989.
They had a little subcommittee that got
together and was thinking about a place
for Oklahoma families to have
opportunities to learn about science. And
one of the key driving forces behind
that was Dr. Alexis Tibbetts, who went
on to become Superintendent of Schools in
Okaloosa County school Principal, and has
always been a big advocate for the
science center throughout our whole
entire history. Initially it was located
at the Landing on downtown Fort Walton
Beach, in a building that the Junior
League was renting and leasing from the
city of Fort Walton Beach. And when
they opened their doors, the name was
the Focus center. So focus stood for
families of okaloosa county understanding
science well, over the course of the
year, a lot of people got the
Focus center confused with and thought it
was an eye clinic.
So that initially led to the name
change a couple of years later. But
the first set of exhibits were handcrafted
by Junior League members and their spouses
and the community and it was just
open on the weekend and it was
an all volunteer organization. But as it
grew and we saw the need for
an organization like that or a place
like the Science center, they decided that
they were going to break out on
their own, become their own 501 nonprofit,
and the name was changed to the
Emerald Coast Science center in 2001. And
that's what the league's whole goal was.
They have started a lot of different
places and a lot of different
organizations in the community. And what
they like to do is they would
like to find a gap. And they
would go in there and create something
to fill the gap with the idea
that that organization would then be able
to carry on by itself. And the
league would step back and then they
would go look for wherever the next
gap was going to be. And that's
kind of what they do in our
community. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I
think it is too. So we changed
the name in 2001. We started to
get more I'm going to say legitimate,
but I will say more professional exhibits
over the course of time. And here's
a little funny. Back in about that
time frame, about 2001, the early two
thousand s, I actually worked at the
Science center as an educator. So I
taught some summer camp programs, we did
some teacher trainings, I did the class
plant spots for tots for about two
years. Really it was and so that's
when I first became involved with the
Science center. And then I stepped back
and I didn't really have anything to
do with the Science center for a
number of years until 2014. A friend
of mine asked
me would I be interested in joining
the board, the board of directors of
the Science center as a 501 C
three. All nonprofits like that have to
have a board of directors that advise
and monitor and make sure that
everything is going well for whatever
organization they're the board of
directors for. And it was at that
time frame that the city, all of
those 20 plus years we had been
leasing the location on the landing from
the city. It's a pretty sweet deal.
Very low rent, not owners of the
buildings, the repairs and things like
that would follow the city to fix.
But a very small space, downtown area
had some ups and downs and hits
and misses. There wasn't really any room
for growth for the Science center and
the city had decided they wanted to
do something different with that space, so
they decided not to renew the lease.
So the board of directors in about
2013, I think when they found this
out, like, okay, what's next steps? They
looked at several different opportunities,
several different places throughout the
area. And at about the same time
the city put what had been the
Creative Senior center owned by the city
up on the market. That became an
option and that became one of the
highest ranking options. And then it
became what we did. Yeah, the choice
it became well, what happened?
Unique it's to such museums. A lot
of museums get their facilities donated to
them by governmental agencies, whether
it's a county or a city or
an escape or whatever. So we are
the only museum in Oakland County that
currently has a mortgage, so we are
in the process of purchasing this building
from the city. That was the final
decision. So in November 2014 we signed
all the paperwork and we moved in
here. Now at this time I was
still just a board member. The museum
had a different director and he
chose Dana full unteaching position with
the county school district. And
that was two weeks before we're set
to open in this new location.
And I don't think the scramble has
ever stopped since then.
The board chair and the director at
the time had said, okay,
we need to have a plan, we
need to go to the remaining board
of directors, and we need to tell
them this is what we're going to
do. And I had volunteered to help
during the move and to help
clean and move stuff from the older
to the new location. My youngest daughter
had just gotten her driver's licence, so
I was no longer the Careful Queen
and had no extra time on my
hands. So they said, well, would you
come in as interim director? Just help
us get moved in here, help us
get the facilities open and ready to
go, and then we'll reassess it after
that and just give us a couple
of months, just help us get our
feet on the ground here. So at
this point, it was just board of
directors. There wasn't like any there
was, like, three to four staff members
okay. That the director had left. And
I had no experience
with nonprofit. I have no business
experience. I am a chemistry major
and I've been a research chemist and
how it works in years. So, I
mean, how desperate could the board have
been given me that time to get
this place up and running? Well, okay,
so we get here, we get open.
I can vividly remember driving my car
to work that
day. And the day is there a
great opening day. Abbey was on a
Sunday, Thanksgiving in 2014, and I was
listening to the
script song, superheroes song, all I know
from the script.
And I was like, okay, we can
do this, we can do this. It's
going to be okay. We can do
this. And I was like, all right.
And we did.
Those new robotics exhibits.
Yeah, lovely.
Lovelace the one animal we had when
we moved here.
The one animal that was ours.
Yes.
And the robotics exhibits, which were
purchased with a BP
grant from the oil spill. And I
did not choose those. So those were
already in play before we moved here.
They were supposed to be here in
time for the grand opening, which was,
again, Thanksgiving 2014. They did not
arrive until March, February, March of
2015. That was a whole different
nightmare.
Yes. Still, quite a few of them
are here.
Some of them we have repurposed.
That's true.
Yeah. I think some of the things
that sort of those first couple of
years were a huge struggle. So much
of our funding went into just the
mortgage. The mortgage. Just being an
owner operator of a building is very
different than leasing a building. So
there were some struggles there. We didn't
have a lot of money to invest
into our programs, and our programs
had remained pretty stagnant for a couple
of years, so there wasn't a lot
of fresh ideas or programs. And we
hadn't, I don't think, at that time,
really kept up with technology and all
the changes that were going on in
science education at the time, what
programs were really going on. Then we
had a family site program. We didn't
have the home school program.
We didn't have Maker days at that
point.
We didn't have Maker day one. Yeah,
we did have one home school program
at the time, and we were doing
field trips. When did you start?
It was the fall of 2016 when
I started. So I graduated in June
of 2016 from high school, and then
I got to college and I was
like, I have nothing really to do
because I was just going like twice
a week. So I was like, I
need to do something. I actually had
emailed Diane because I knew Leslie who
worked here as front desk, and she
was leaving and going to college, and
I was like, Can I come be
front desk since Leslie's leaving? Yeah.
And she said yes, thankfully, so so.
I think Jacie came in right at
the end of the period of time.
I think 2015 was our year of
huge panic.
And I think a couple of things
that sort of really moved us out
of that panic allowed us a little
breathing room, was we had a corporate
sponsorship from Oakland to Gas, and so
for a couple of years, they had
an exhibit in the museum, but they
also paid us to have that exhibit.
So had we not had that sponsorship
the first year or two, it would
have been probably a very different story
about the story we're talking about now.
And then after that, we started a
partnership with the Air Force Research
Laboratory. And I think that was really
the tipping point that we said, okay,
we might be okay because part of
the funding that we got from them
allowed us to invest in the programs.
So we were able to revamp the
Families finance fund, we were able to
buy new technology and keep up with
what the latest gadgets and things were
going on in science education. And it
allowed us to provide exhibits. So
previous to that point, we didn't have
any new exhibits that you only would
be a one and done. You would
come here and you would have your
one experience here, and if you came
back again, it would be basically the
same experience you had before. Because
nothing had changed with the exhibits.
At that point, too. We didn't really
have any outdoor exhibits either. Like, we
had the turtle pond with Cully and
them. But that was about in the
shuffleboard course that was out there.
Yeah, for a little while.
When I got here, the end of
2019, there was nothing in the backyard
besides the Turtle pond. And then there
was also those metal plane seesaws
if I remember right.
Oh, yeah. Because we just tried to
buy something to go out there. And
the tables, we have the concrete tables
that are still out there, so people
can eat out there half the time.
The field trips would either eat out
there or they'd go across to the
park that's across from us.
It's been a process, for sure. For
sure. But I think getting that first
partnership with the AFRL, and that's the
reoccurring partnership that happens every
year. So that had allowed us to
invest in the programs, to come up
with some really new programs. I mean,
at that point in time, our clients,
Family Night, took over, took off. I
mean, it just became something really fun
and engaging and new and different every
year, redone every year. It was themed,
and that's really been a boom for
us as well. And then that allowed
us to invest in new exhibits. So
then you needed to come back more
than once, because you came back the
next time, there was going to be
something new, there was a new exhibit,
there was something and we became and
Jason Smith tested this in the first
couple of years. We became incredibly
creative, and I think a lot of
what you see when you visit the
museum is born out of that poverty
over the first couple of years. And
the fact that we had to
be able to figure out how to
create and do something, whether it was
something little, but it was something
different.
That's like the woman's restroom. I feel
like that's a very great example. We
did the cricut stuff. We got the
vinyl up at the top, and we
printed off different pictures and facts
about all the women and just put
them on the walls and we painted.
There's no leather bathroom like that.
No, not at all. And that was
something that didn't cost a lot in
theory, but was something different that
we could do at the same time.
And that's kind of what we did.
The Ology that came out
of the I'm Ally Ward podcast came
out Ologies, and we all huge fans
of that. Like, oh, how can we
incorporate that into the science?
That was a lot of hard work.
It was some searching how to find
a lot of Ology types put up
there. Thankfully, that volunteer came,
though, because I'm not a big fan
of heights. So she came up there
and was sticking up on the hardest
yeah, she did. Probably the hardest part.
Yeah, definitely a couple of days.
Yeah.
But I think it's just really small
things like that that you'll see here
that you won't see at a bigger
museum. And that's because we're like,
okay, we got $100.
Yeah. What are we going to do
with this?
We're also small, so we feel like
we need to build every single square
footage on this place so that when
people come, they can have a lot
to take it in. Well, and we
know when we go visit other museums.
And thankfully, I've had the ability to
be able to attend the ASTC conferences
on a regular basis. And Harley went
with me this year to Pittsburgh. But
they're always hosted at these host
museums and they always have big parties
and stuff like that three story, four
story, beautiful, abstract, 100 million
dollar operating budget museums, right?
And we don't even have a million
dollar operating budget here, but the
amount of just, like, life space. Yeah.
You're kind of, like, probably needs to
go here.
We were walking around and we're just
looking and why don't they have something
in this open space right here on
this lump wall? What are they doing?
Yeah, the clutters where we even have
stuff on the
floor that you're supposed to look at
and engage with. But I think a
lot of that is stuff that we
definitely need to I think is very
indicative of who we are and how
everybody that works here creates
something that they leave as their mark
on the plane.
I have so many things with my
handwriting that's going to be here
forever.
I also feel like it can be,
in a sense, kind of relatable. A
lot of people like to do DIY
things and then they come here and
we express like, yeah, I work on
this, I work on this. People are
like, I don't know, take that apart.
They definitely understand that you're
putting a lot of effort into what
you're doing because you're sitting there
doing the work. You didn't just go
and buy this exhibit from somebody or
something like that. Like, you have to
do the research and then do stuff
for it.
I think people can recognize that
everybody that works here is very
passionate about the work that we do
and that it is actually a labor
of love. And I've heard people comment,
this place just feels like a labor
of love. I'm like, you have no
idea. But what about
the SMALLab? When did we get
that? That was our Impact 100 grant.
And that was in 2017 when we
got the grant, because we
had gone to ASTC conference in Tampa
and the Glacier Children's Museum had
SMALLab and they had done a
social, so you can come down there
and sign up and they were going
to show you SMALLab and give
you free food and drinks. And so
we were like, we're all in for
the free food always. So Kristen worked
with us at the time
and she and I went down there
and looked at it and the whole
walk back to the hotel, about a
mile walk down the riverfront and campus
was beautiful, beautiful walk back. The
whole way back, all we could talk
about was all the different possibilities
and opportunities if we could get an
exhibit like that. So we had always
written for 100 grant, had never gotten
it, had been a fine with us,
I think, at least one other time,
but I think we at that point
in time said this, this is the
project. Yeah, this is the one thing
that will put us on the map
and will really take us to the
next level, which is what the idea
of an Impact 100 grant is what
can be transformational for your
organization and absolutely SMALLab and
some of the upgrades to the building.
Because it wasn't just Small ABS. We
finally got the doors, sledding doors, the
farm doors between SMALLab and.
Also the floors in the two classrooms.
And the kitchen too. The flooring in
the kitchen as well. New lights too,
so that way it was bright and
new ceiling stuff.
And we did replace the one panel
box.
Yes, at the same time too.
It was kind of a remake of
the classroom space.
Yeah, because it was, believe it or
not, carpet in SMALLab before. Yes.
And that was not very fun. And
then we had it like it was
a slab for a little while.
Before we finally got concrete. Concrete?
Our walls are concrete.
Yes. And even like we painted, it
wasn't this color blue, I don't think,
before. Yeah, that's true.
And the grey cabinets too. Even better
in there. Those were over time.
At the time we were the third
museum in the whole country to have
SMALLab, which is a pretty nice
southern air cap, especially for a
market as small as ours is to
have something of that stature. The
glacier in Tampa, and it was at
the aerospace museum in Wallace, Virginia.
So I mean, hey, those are some
pretty prestigious in that area. And I
guess for people that probably don't know
SMALLab, we call it sciPad now.
And it's essentially like a large
interactive game educational thing. You
can play you use wines and you
walk around on the floor and you
can play memory games. You could sort
things out. One of the games you
have is like sorting into animal habitats.
You can move the animals to the
habitat. It's great for educational
purposes.
Yeah, and it's great too, because we
get to customize those games so we
can have like the habitat.Or we can tell Jacie I have
an idea, I wanna do this, here, can you
do that?
Yes, because I think our main ones
that we use are the memory, which
is matching two pictures or pictures
towards the order line, which is you're
putting something in order from, like, the
first to the last or something. Like
that and then the sorted out portraying
it into up to four different categories
because we even for our ship in
science and stuff like that. We did
order line of how you make beer,
how you make wine or memory. We
have Pokemon and Marvel stuff in there,
so it can be educational but also
very fun too, at the same time.
My favorite one is the Disney Princesses
in their site. Yes, that one is
so cute. It's great because even Mongers
too. So I have to
give a shout out to Jacie because
when we talk to the small ad
company which has just been recently
bought out by a different company, and
Motion, they have really looked at the
content that Jacie has created.
And that is the high watermark for
all that she has become.
Like the gold standard. Which I think
is really incredible because we had very
little training.
I wasn't even at any of the
trainings that they did in person.
Yeah.
Yes. So I was just kind of
like, I'm going do it. Yeah.
So I think time basically was the
most, and probably still is the most
technologically savvy person got pushed to
her.
But no, I think it was a
combination of her technology skills, but
also the creativity that sort of when
she looked at it, looked at the
way everybody else made their games, she
was like, no, I'm going to take
this to the next level. So definitely
when you visit, ask about the small
up, especially if you have an open,
be sure to take advantage of that.
Yeah. Because we do have it open
to the public. It's certain times,
especially like over breaks and stuff like
that, spring break in the summer. We'll
have it open certain times that you
guys can just come as a family
and enjoy it, or just with.
Your friends too, only because it has
to be rained by somebody. Somebody has
to pull up the games on the
computer and do that. And a lot
of times it's really easy for volunteers
to do to pick it up. Super
easy. And most of the time I'm
like, do you want to learn? You
can interact with guests, you can run
a program great for their kind of
resume as well. And I won't make
you go outside and pay.
Yeah, you get to be inside.
So I think, Harley, you can probably
speak to some of the changes that
have happened since with Pandemic. You've
coordinated our volunteers, you've been
the lead educator, and so a lot
of those changes have been facilitated
through the work that you've done here.
Well, I got here right before
showed up, actually. Whenever I moved
here, I didn't have a job and
I was looking for an area. So
I had moved in with my boyfriend
and one of our friends, Keanna, worked
here. And I didn't really know all
of my boyfriend's friends yet, but we
had met some of them, they were
like, why don't you go work with
her at the science center? And I
was like, what is that? And so
I typed up an email to Lisa
and like, hey, this is super cool.
I'd love to come in. Came in
and was fired. Yes, this is awesome.
But came in and then I think
was as an educator, though, with our
health and educator, and I loved all
the educators there. I still do now,
but they're such a great group of
people, so good stuff. And then I
think a couple of months into me
being an educator, Diane and Kate were like,
Hi, Kate's leaving. And she was supposed to be
moving.
I think before the pandemic and
offered the community affairs coordinator
team. And I was like, sure, because
I still would like to work more
hours. So I kind of filled in
a lot of that. But then come
March, February even, really, when
the pandemic started, and we were like,
we've got to cancel some of these
things. We have to do this. But
we also have a full staff of
educators.
What are we going to do?
What are we going to do? What
can we come up with? And I
think the first thing we started doing
was the virtual videos, the behind the
scenes. Behind the scenes, and which are
on our YouTube right now.
They're on Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube. You can see them any point
in time.
Okay.
And we ended up doing 52 total
videos. I counted 52 of them
within a.
Span of, what, two, three.
Two to three months.
But I think it was, like, one
every single day.
Yeah. And we had started with just
all of them being live, but then
we went live and then recorded one,
because, like, you and Keanna were one
of the main ones that recorded them
at home, because you did your chemistry
ones, the kitchen chemistry.
Chemistry. But we were trying to be
cautious of each other and making sure
that we weren't coming in and if
we were sick, exposing anybody. But that
also we needed to still work. A
lot of us still needed to come
in and get some sort of hours
in. And then we also did the
Kiss the science to go kiss, which
we actually still can't do.
Some of them.
We have people contact us and ask
about the kits. We did an owl
pellet inspection kit. We did a polymers
kit, we did a circuit kit, an
engineering kit, and a great fossil fine
kit. I mean, we can kind of
tweak them to, however, but all of
those were kind of like, what can
we put together that people can purchase?
And yes, some of those stuff. And
a lot of it we kind of
already had. Or we were like, we
could have buy these few things and
it wouldn't cost us a whole bunch
of money to put it together for
them.
But I think a lot of it
turned into us. We really were like,
Time to get techies.
Yeah.
Take some videos and feel comfortable
talking into a mic. Which I think
was, like, nervous for a while.
Yeah.
But it was a fun time. I
mean, the behind the scenes videos we
have just about animals.
Yeah. Each, like, species.
Each species.
That's right. Yeah. Because Tanner was
here with Maddie. They did
species.
Tanner volunteer, who is species
favorite.
Yes.
But then after that, I think after
that, we started the virtual science class
program.
Yes. That was for the schools. Because
we were like, what can we do
that could still be for the schools,
but also not us going in there.
And so that we kind of picked,
I think it was nine different topics,
ten different topics. And we did a
total of four videos. So the first
video was an intro video. Say, for
instance, the theme was chemistry, because
I think I did the chemistry one.
We talked about what chemistry is, the
basics of it, and it was like
five minutes long. Then the second video
was an activity, I think. I think
so the second video was like just
a little quick activity made up of
that topic. Then the third video was
the hour long video.
Yes.
And that has essentially kind of what
we would do for our home school
academy, where it would take them like
four inch hours to kind of run
through, watch the whole video. But it
was narrowed down to 1 hour. So
they watched the video and that.
Was recorded by us, then edited we.
Sent all the words and then Jacie.
Edited everything, put pictures and videos
in.
There, filmed the activities so that the
kids could watch the activities. And then
the fourth video was also.
Like a short five minute one that
was the expert.
But when was the careers limit? Because
we definitely talk about careers at.
One, so I guess that was 1234
was the expert. And then the main
lesson was by itself, because it was
the four snaps.
So yeah, then the fourth one would
have been an expert out in the
world.
Yeah, some of those weren't you didn't
even probably weren't in here in Florida
or anything. They were other places.
So for the chemistry one, we had.
Katrina with paper chemistry.
She did paper chemistry. And I would
just contact these people and ask them
if they could film a short video
of themselves. I don't think anybody came
in here. I think everybody just did
it virtually to me, short and simple.
And we had like a couple of
questions for them to answer during the.
Video and they would just talk about
what they do. There was some sort
of connection from the actual topic to
a career. Alex Fogg also did one
for our marine biology one. I can't
remember off the top of.
My head, I don't remember the name.
But those are two people that we've
definitely worked with more now come in
and volunteered or gotten our life. Yes,
those are always super great.
And we even worked with Destin Fort Walton
Beach a little bit because they came
and did some videos with us for
their Facebook and stuff like that as
well.
Yeah, but then, I think, by that
point, because we were still doing the
virtual science class programs when we
opened back up. But now we still
have those who offer out the people.
If anybody ever wanted one, we just
wanted one, and our schools wanted to
use that.
That's true, because we did offer it
to everyone. We said you could purchase.
It for something.
To use it. They could yeah, it's
just there, but lots of video making,
lots of assembling kits. But those are
always fun. And then I think also
another big thing while we were closed
was developing outside because we had time
to do it, and outside was a
lot more safer. And I think you
had read somewhere that people just
started, people are feeling more safe
outside. And that would have been in,
like, June of 2020, right after the
pandemic started. And I sort of think
about how different we would have looked
if we hadn't gone through a pandemic,
nothing outside. I don't know that I
would have developed in the way that
it has, but I think at that
point in time, they were just like,
okay, what can we do? We didn't
have a beautiful outdoor space that we
didn't utilise at all.
No, we had that metal gate, basically,
where the boating was, so it was
sectioned off. That other half was just,
like, overgrown, had the trees and
everything. We didn't really use it for
anything at that point in time.
And if you look at it now,
we reached out to the community. We
had so many people that just made
monetary donations. We came
up with a list of products that
we thought we wanted to do outside,
and we all sat down together and
said, okay, what should we put out
there? Really focus on this. And then
I wrote letters to 15 biggest home
builders in the area asking, I have
a full list of materials we needed.
Lumber and screws and brackets and braces
and everything. Whitworth builders. I
just moved on right away, and they
were like, Diane, we will work with
Navarre Lumber and we'll get everything on
your list. And a couple of weeks
later, the old delivery truck from Navarre
Lumber comes in and just all those
materials down for us. So now we
actually had to do all the work,
but now we have a tree house
because of that. Did they also give
us the dinosaur materials as well?
Was it GFC concrete? They poured the
concrete for us. Put the dinos in
there. Yeah.
They were great. They enjoyed yeah, they
really got into
it. And then Warner Turf did the
sand for it. And then as a
separate project later on, Watree Homes
partnered with Red Horse. Obviously, Red
Horse, her big emblem is on the
Dino Dig, the top of the Dino Dig.
And Red Horse came in and built
the roof of the dinosaur dig and Watree
Homes donated materials for that project as
well. So that's just a community. I
mean, we had volunteers, military
volunteers from the EOD School Harley
worked with. How many total different
individuals? It was at least 100.
Yeah. And some of them would come
back multiple times for a couple of
months there we had them. They would
come every Thursday, and I would make
lunch. We would feed them and they
like to work outside, which was great
building. They built so much. Our two
in house volunteers, Hank and Ted we're
project managers at that point. I hadn't
gotten here yet, but Hank and Katie
Tanner would pop into it. That sort
of supervised were the designers of the
project, but strong back were the EOD
volunteers. And we got so much accomplished,
there's only so much our little arms
pin with. That means we'll try when
we can't anymore.
It's kind of funny, I think, about
the evolution of the boat exhibit, which
just started out with the pontoon boat
donated by Legendary Marine, and then we
got the carport to put over it
and we were like, okay, well, we
just want to make this be an
exhibit to talk about. People can get
on a boat, they can get familiar
with it, they can learn the rules
of the road, but when they risk
that boat, it's Crab Island, they know
what they're supposed to be doing. There
was no way to sign up. They
understand about time, they understand
about weather, how quickly changes the
radio. We had all this boater safety
and we had actually stopped
the dock at the entrance to the
Pontoon boat and then, okay, well, maybe
we should get one of every kind of
boat, yes.
Then we got the jet ski, the
wave runner, and then we got
kayak. And I do have another wave runner to bring. So we had to
extend the dock. And then we got
the a tonnes, the aids to navigation from
the Coast Guard. And it's kind of
funny, just this morning we got an
email from the Coast Guard saying how
much they like what we have done
with that and how they want to
use us as a model for all
other small maritime museums to look at.
The exhibit that we built sort of
just scratch out of our heads and
just kept adding to it and adding
to it until it's become what it
has become, which is really a unique
exhibit and a very important educational
exhibit in our area. And we're currently
working on a project to create a
rip time current exhibit that
will actually be a hands on exhibit
so that people can see what those
look like and how it will never
be done.
We all want it to be a
one and done. We always need to
be adding new things and creating new
exhibits because we want even our members
to find value in what we do
here. Yes, we come back and there's
a little something, something sweet, they
painted something or they got another
animal. Okay, that's a whole different
type of work. That's going to be
a lot of fun. But yeah, but
they got another animal. I think that
pretty much brings us up to date
on how we got to now. How
do you get to this place of
being so broke in 2015? We weren't
sure we were going to make it.
And then slowly building and building and
building to where we had had our
best fiscal year at the end of
2019, 2019. We were killing it, we
thought, at the time, and
then going through the pandemic in 2020
and having the worst year
the following year, that as it turns
out, we are a very different organization.
I think we're more resilient, more
creative.
We got the ASTC Award for resiliency
at the conference, so that
just this
summer, too, each like, month would pass
and Lisa and Kate would be like,
this is our best month. This is
our best month next month, this is
our best month. And I think too, looking at, I
hate
to encourage anybody to do this, but
to go look at our reviews
have an hour to waste or something.
If you go back to all of
those 2014, 2015, even 2016 reviews,
Google reviews and TripAdvisor reviews
and things like that, it was just
every time I would get a little
ping and I got a review, I was like oh no. Some
of them
were understanding I would say that they
were understanding what the situation was
like. But now I still get a
little cringe every time I see that
a Google review has popped up. And
now it's not as terrifying as it
has been in the past. I think
it's a good way to sort of
measure the evolution of an organization.
Yes, are they thriving or surviving?
But the thing is, we care about
those reviews. We all to be good
because we want the community to enjoy
coming here and to learn science. I
think that's the biggest thing. So when
we do get the reviews, it's like
all of us look at them, new
educators and like, oh, that's deep.
That's awesome. Yeah, they tell us at
this workshop or the presentation or the
little thing, but I don't think, too,
we take it apart. It definitely takes
a heartbeat, too, but sometimes that can
help you to refocus because they may
have picked up on something that you
just become so sent blind to that
you don't even realize that oh, yeah,
you know what? That is an issue.
I'm glad somebody brought that to our
attention because I hadn't even traveled
down that thought process. We actually do
really take them all to heart, so
they all have a lot of eating
here. And I think even too, some
of our programs have kind of evolved
as well. Started off with just a
couple, like Diane mentioned, with the
Focus center kind of just like the
couple. But then I think whenever I
started, all of these programs were
still like here. We just added days
to them because our Home School Academy
and our Maker days and our Summer STEAM
workshops well, home school academy and
Maker days were on one Tuesday a
month. And we have so many home
school parents that wanted to sign up.
We have a wait list at school that
have a whole other day full of
them. And so we added Mondays for
those days. And then our summer seam
workshops, which we do in the summertime
in the week, was also just on
the Tuesday, but we added Mondays to
those. Those from what you guys told
me, the summer seam workshops used to
be a whole week.
Oh, yeah. That was when Mary was
here. And it was a whole week.
And they weren't getting as much out
of it as they could have just
in the one day of being here,
honestly. Or the two days, the Monday
and Tuesday. Now they get so much
more out of it with what you
guys do and the activities and the
fun themes that you guys have than
they did when it was the full
week.
The most fun part about creating the
home school and the majority days and
the summer seam workshops is the
educators. We can pick what we want
to teach, which so if I'm super
passionate about bugs,
we can do a whole class on
entomology and insects, and some of the
kids can like it. Some of them
come in not liking it, but he's
loving it.
But I loved how you guys did
the marine biology one, where you guys
dissected the lionfish and the squid. I
thought that was amazing. I'm sure some
of the kids are just like, Get
me out of here.
But not so happy tummies.
They loved it. Where are you going to dissect
a lionfish?
Oh, no. And then you guys got
to show them our lionfish tank,
too. And you're like, they're here, too.
It was awesome. And then we have
Pathways, which is the middle school home
school program.
That one's been really great.
If you're doing at least ten kids
in there, every teacher now, it's not
more. I think there was one day.
That.
I almost had a 20.
Yeah.
And I was like, middle school.
Yes.
And then we have our field trips
that we do. But I think we
kind of have to be careful about
how many more things we add on
because we have so many programs and
because we want to reach so many
different areas in the community. Like the
theme workshops, if we kept those a
whole week, you're not going to get
as much. But then that also takes
away the rest of the week from
us reaching.
Different parts of the community or even
just doing stuff here for the people
that are coming in. We couldn't really
have, like, SMALLab open or something
like that.
Summer camp programs that other ones off
site.
Yeah, like the martial arts and stuff.
Like the vegetarian out taking science
activities and other martial arts is
always one we definitely do in the
summertime because they have a whole
summer camp, but they only have the
outreaches that we do during the school
year as well. Like now we do
fresh start opportunities and we try to
bring up some new technology.
And this year we're doing it at
the library, the herbal library, too.
We're going there for outreaches.
We forgot Jim. I just thought of
Jim.
At the.
Fort Walton Beach Library, that's free at
the Port Walmart Beach Library that we
have also through a grant. And each,
I think it's the second Saturday of
the month at the library, girls can
come in ages, what's, like eight to
15? That's really the target age. We
wanted to hit with that and learn
about a different female scientist and do
cool science activities. It's like an hour
and a half long in the morning,
like 1030 to twelve. And it's awesome.
But we also get to pick those
science if we're, like, reading something
or listening to a podcast, and we're
like, wow, that's a cool woman, let's
talk about her. Well, we need to
make sure these kids know her. Yeah,
so that's great. But our field trips
are also victims. Lisa developed the
four rotations field trip when she came
in, and that has since changed a
little bit. It's still four rotations, but
we always have a lesson that we
base off of standards for the schools.
And then we do a rotation in
the small lat room so that the
kids can get to explore that. And
then an animal presentation and then free
time in museums. They get to see
all of this stuff out there.
And SMALLab. The teachers can pick
what they want to talk about in
there, too, where they can just be
like, you guys can do whatever. There's
a couple ones that we've done for
the teachers.
We typically will kind of give them
options like science or Earth and space
science, but sometimes they want to do
math or they want us to hit
a particular thing, which we think
but other than oh, and the Family
Science Night, which we talked a little
bit.
About, I think this year has been
probably the favorite, I would say, of
everybody.
Yeah, that is very true. Everybody has
been like the Human Anatomy Academy. But
it's because we have been able to
have a little bit more funding to
kind of put more money into those
to bring super duper cool things.
Yeah, we have microscopes that we're
bringing this year, which really nice,
which were donated to us. Yeah.
And then we have volunteering, too. So
big groups always, like the USB guys
are great. Heavy lifters.
Yes.
Strong back. Yes. Strong backgrounds.
Anybody that has a strong back,
strong arms, strong legs.
Anybody that wants to come as a
group, those are the best kind.
Groups are great. We'll feed you.
Yes.
We'll feed you after we build.
Yes. You get to have the fun
afterwards.
I think we pretty much brought ourselves
up to the current about how we
got to now, where we are now.
And you've learned a lot about our
background, a lot about who we are,
why we do what we do and
what we do. I think a lot
of people don't realize how large our
reach is in the community. We're in
a lot of places. I live
in Walton County, wherever you are. And
I think it'll just continue
to kind of be on this train
too. With the more creativity that we
put into the center and the more
creative minds we have, the collaboration,
all of the different partnerships, whether
it's another nonprofit that we're
providing services to or whether it's
another organization that has a like
minded mission or a goal. Working with
the Emerald Fitness Foundation on the
midfield thing, they teach swimming
lessons and they're looking for something
to take in. It shows a very
good visual of what actually happens. And
we have a local exhibit builder that
helps us out and he's like, okay,
I think I can make that. That
collaboration just popped up within the
last month or so. We love that.
We love when we find people that
have like minded goals for that. So,
yes, there's a good buck editing this.
Well, that's good because we talked about
a lot of different things, but next
episode we're going to talk about our
pie in the sky dreams. So we'll
see you then.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's
episode of Cultivate Curiosity.
If you have any questions, feel free
to email us at socialmedia@ecscience.org. Tune
in for our next episode in two weeks.