In the News

01.25.2004

"A Forward-Looking Science Center"

by Dr. Theodore S. Sergi in the Hartford Courant

Twenty years ago, community, education and business leaders began discussing the need for a world-class science center in Connecticut. The concept has gone through many lives, but now has a solid foundation from which to rise. The new Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration will be a statewide education institution with regional appeal to families and tourists. Ground-breaking should begin in 2005.

Scientific and technological advancements are driving our economy and culture faster than ever before. Both disciplines provide solutions to many of society's most pressing issues, such as reducing hunger and disease and increasing the standard of living for the entire world. Solutions will come only if our children are engaged in science and technology at an early age. A primary goal of the center is to inspire more young people to pursue science, technology, engineering or mathematics and make it their career.

The United States is an underachiever in creating scientists. Germany, Switzerland, China and Korea award scientific graduate degrees at twice the rate of the United States. Their students demonstrate higher achievement, and at earlier ages, in mathematics and science. This has a direct impact on U.S. employment trends, technological innovations and global competition. If our colleges and universities are not graduating enough scientists, our corporations will either move overseas or hire highly educated workers from other countries.

Connecticut can claim such technological firsts as the pay phone, submarine, vacuum cleaner, Polaroid camera, can opener, tape measure, color television, helicopter, revolver, portable typewriter, sewing machine and Frisbee. This is our legacy of innovation, and this is what the center will do - ignite children's imaginations and creativity by building an eye-catching structure with eye-opening exhibits.

The Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration will include exhibits for all ages and interests. But programming will focus on the wonders of science for schoolchildren of impressionable ages. It will include teacher training on-site and it will send exhibits to teachers. University professors and students will interact with kindergarten to 12th-grade teachers. High-tech employees and retirees will be asked to mentor teachers and students in their schools and at the center. The center will provide the latest information on the most recent discoveries from the corporate research department to the college laboratory.

The center's unique educational mission will emphasize - a new way of thinking in the museum industry - partnerships with schools, colleges and corporations, with science and technology organizations, with other science museums in Connecticut, and with history and art institutions. We have the unprecedented opportunity to create linkages across cultural, institutional and corporate boundaries. Like a good restaurant coming to a place where several already operate, the new center will add value to other institutions, and together they will serve more customers better.

Every successful science center in America uses hands-on interactive exhibits that stimulate experimentation and innovation; they also increasingly use national traveling exhibits that continually generate new ideas and experiences. Our center will also use these strategies. Although still under discussion, exhibits are likely to include such topics as the Connecticut River, great rivers of the world and riparian ecology; the human body - its use and abuse; a Dr. Henry C. Lee crime lab; journeys to outer space, the center of the Earth and the oceans' floors; healthy and unhealthy environments for plants, animals and humans; sensory experiences of heat, light, sound, magnetism and motion; building bridges, tunnels and extraordinary structures; predicting the weather and natural catastrophes; and the speed and power of new technologies.

The Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration will help strengthen Connecticut's workforce, generate new tourism revenue and spur new economic development. Corporate, private, research, academic, education and government leaders see the potential for such a center, which they have demonstrated by forming a world-class board of trustees and providing important start-up funding. The state has taken a leading role by providing two-thirds of the resources necessary to design, build and open the center. Private and other contributions will fund the remaining one-third.

We have a collective obligation to future generations of Connecticut residents to make 2004 the time that Connecticut begins a new focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an exciting time in Connecticut.

All thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Contact us at info@ctsciencecenter.org or by writing us at Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration, 50 Columbus Boulevard, 5th floor, Hartford, CT 06106.

Theodore S. Sergi is president and CEO of the Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration and is the former state commissioner of education.