If you’ve visited Science North at any point during its more than 40-year history, you’ll probably know about the Nature Exchange program, which allows visitors to bring in items they’ve found in nature and exchange them from items in the collection.
Now, that program is going global.
The science centre held a press conference Jan. 22 to announce $2.3 million in funding for Science North and its sister science centre, Dynamic Earth, from the federal government. Most of those funds are earmarked for the expansion of the mining attraction, but a portion will be used to expand the Nature Exchange program to major science centres around the world.
A $710,000 Creative Export Canada grant will be used for this purpose.
“It will allow us to take what is already an amazing visitor experience and really modernize it and make it really attractive for export,” said Science North CEO Ashley Larose.
“So it’s already installed in cities across North America, but this will allow us to really take it global, which is super exciting.”
She said Nature Exchange exhibits are already installed in science centres including the Niagara Glen Nature Centre and the Las Vegas Springs Preserve.
“It really does leverage our natural penchant for collecting,” Larose said. “Any parent who’s had to pull rocks out of the pockets of their kids’ pants before they put them in the wash knows that kids are just natural collectors, so we leverage that.
“And then people like to exchange information. So we want to hear the stories. Where did you find the rock? What do you know about the rock? So it encourages individualized learning with our bluecoats as well.”
By the way, if you ever had a Nature Exchange account, your points may still exist, and you can transfer them to your young family members if you wish.
The balance of the funds announced Jan. 22 are $1.6 million from the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund for the Dynamic Earth expansion project, which includes $500,000 in new funding which will allow the project to progress to its next phase.
The funding supports the construction and excavation of new modern mining drifts and visitor experience spaces at Dynamic Earth, which Larose said will ideally open in the spring of 2026.
She said the new drift has been completed, but construction is just beginning on the new building at the end of the drift, which will resemble the cavern at Science North.
The size of the new spaces will allow Dynamic Earth to bring in full-size mining equipment, “which may be the only time visitors get face to face with the size of these machines,” Larose said.
All levels of government have contributed to the project, she said, an investment in engaging the public in the mining sector.
“So we’re that interface of the mining sector and the industry and the general public,” she said. “We play a really important role. As mining has never been more important, it’s really, really critical that we get those messages out.”
Given Science North is now exporting its programming around the world, in her remarks during the press conference Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe joked that it should look at changing its name to Science World.
“Now that footprint is truly international,” said Lapointe.
She said Science North is a leader in high-quality interactive education, “and our government’s investment will help to accelerate their global reach, which is good news for Sudbury and for Northern Ontario.”
Lapointe said tourism is a major economic driver for Northern Ontario, bringing money into our communities and creating jobs.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
This post was originally published on here
