The Denver Museum of Nature & Science will use its largest gift ever to help change the way science is taught.
An $8 million gift from the Morgridge Family Foundation will be used to construct a three-story addition, the Science Engagement Center, on the south side of the museum.
In 2007, Denver voters approved a bond issue that gave $30 million to this project as well as millions more to others that could raise matching funds.
The gift announced Monday brings to $15 million the total the museum has raised toward the $23 million needed to match the city’s money.
The next-largest gift to the museum was $7 million, which was donated previously by the Ricketson family, for whom the museum auditorium was named.
The 40,000-square-foot Science Engagement Center will have two floors dedicated to science education using new technologies. The focus will be on children ages 4 to 14 and their parents and teachers. The new education program will replace the museum’s Discovery Zone.
“Our goal is to inspire those children to learn about science and have them learn in the way they learn today,” said museum president and chief executive George Sparks. “It’s much more electronic and participatory.”
Among the new technologies that will be used at the center is Cisco’s TelePresence. This technology will allow for larger outreach, through lifelike video and real-time audio, as well as interactive communication, which should appeal to young museum visitors.
“That’s how they are leading their lives, and if we capitalize on that, I think we’ll have a wonderful opportunity,” said Polly Andrews, director of youth and teacher programs at the museum.
The Denver museum will be the first in the country to have the technology.
The museum uses similar technology about six times a year to connect scientists or researchers live with students at the museum or at local schools.
“We want to get to where it’s a normal occurrence, hundreds of times a year,” Sparks said. “And not just here, across the world. Nowadays, we are in constant contact. We want education to be something like that.”
Since 1999, the Morgridge Family Foundation has been making large gifts to educational organizations in Colorado and is dedicated to creating “21st century classrooms,” said vice president Carrie Morgridge.
The gift to the museum is the second-largest donation it has ever made.
“This is the best investment our family can invest in,” Morgridge said. “We will be able to have scientists teaching in high-def, and we’ll Skype that into all these classrooms.”
The Morgridge foundation also recently donated $200,000 to the University of Denver. That donation included similar Cisco technology.
The third floor of Science Engagement Center be used as gallery space for temporary exhibits. The new building also will include underground storage for more than a million objects in the museum’s collection.
The museum is expected to announce the project’s architectural and exhibit design team in two weeks.
Groundbreaking on the building is set for late next year, and will begin using the $30 million from the city. The project will be completed as the money is raised.