Don Harrington Discovery Center

EXHIBITS

Come get your hands-on science! Over sixty different permanent exhibits and three traveling exhibitions a year invite visitors of all ages to experiment, explore, create, tinker, play, solve, and discover with their own hands. Build a 6 foot tall hands-on catenary arch with your friends or family! And remember, our Science Guides are here everyday just for you, to answer any questions you might have about the exhibits or the Discovery Center itself.

Group tours and educational programs related to the exhibits can be scheduled by calling 806-355-9547.

Permanent Exhibits

Tiny Town
An Early Childhood center for children 4 years of age and younger, Tiny Town allows your little one the opportunity to build, slide, climb and tinker with shapes and puzzles in a protected area set up just for toddlers. A child-friendly area, Tiny Town is not child-proof – your adult supervision is still required.

Weather
The Texas panhandle is famous for its rapidly changing weather, and our Weather Station allows kids of all ages to explore tornados, turbulence, cloud rings, and other phenomenon with their own hands. In addition, kids can take their turns as the weather person on our closed circuit television station.

Aquaria
Home to Amarillo’s only public aquaria, the Discovery Center offers visitors of all ages an opportunity to come face to face with living coral reef, giant freshwater fish, turtles, eels, and other fresh and saltwater animals. Inhabitants of the aquaria are always changing, so no two visits are ever the same.

Optical Illusions
What we see isn’t always what’s there. Come fool your eyes with our series of exhibits devoted to the science of optics and optical illusions. Duck into a giant kaleidoscope, explore how movies are made, and play with Escher drawings of stairs that never end! You won’t believe your eyes!

Puzzles
Try your hand at folk puzzles from around the world. Blacksmith’s puzzles challenge your ability to manipulate surface area in our topology area; tangrams challenge your ability to combine geometric forms to create simple or complex images; and magic squares introduces you to the basic principles behind the number craze, Sudoku. These are just a few of the exhibits you can wrap your mind and your hands around in this permanent exhibition.

New to the Discovery Center:

Science Café (opened summer 2007)
Science Café is a place where people of all ages, backgrounds, and ability levels can explore science. The café provides learners the time, space, and materials to question, investigate, and discover together. With an extensive and dynamic palette of hands-on, inquiry-based activities, each visit will bring about a different experience at the Science Cafe!

ExploraZone (opens fall 2007)
We’ll help build your students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics and science with our fabulous interactive experiences. Students can put their process and investigation skills to work with more than 30 new hands-on exhibits from our world-renowned partner, the Exploratorium. They’ll investigate pendulums, center of gravity, motion, and our new optics exhibits that explore how vision works and how it misleads us!

Amazing Bodies! (opening March 2008)
This new permanent exhibition uses awe-inspiring wonders of life and living bodies to capture the imagination of visitors and engage them in the excitement of scientific process and inquiry. This exhibit will nurture learning in life sciences by supporting learner-initiated investigations into how all living things relate. Amazing Bodies! will present the broad spectrum of life sciences from many perspectives but will connect science to everyday life using kids, cows, and dogs as content touchstones.

Temporary Exhibits

Moneyville
June – August 2007

Playing the stock market takes on a literal meaning at the Discovery Center’s new Moneyville exhibit. Visitors can also see a four-foot cube of one million $1 bills (only 210 of them are real) or use laser technology to tell the difference between real and funny money.

The traveling exhibit is set in the 6,000-square-foot imaginary city of Moneyville.

More than 25 hands-on activities teach the math behind money and feature currency from around the world, the cost of credit, how money is “made”, and more. A virtual lemonade stand teaches the concept of supply and demand, and a double-sided scale explains the concept of a balanced budget.

In the Kids Market, younger children learn how to sort, count, group, weigh and “buy” goods using scales and cash registers. At the Kids Bank, children learn math basics and role play with oversized coins, teller windows and an ATM.

The exhibit was created by the Oregon Museum of Science with funding from the National Science Foundation and the NASDAQ Foundation. The Don Harrington Discovery Center hosts Moneyville through August 26.

Amazing Feats of Aging
September – December 2007

Step right up and see the AMAZING FEATS OF AGING! mysteries of why and how animals, including humans, age in this colorful, carnival-themed exhibition. Designed for families, adults, and school groups (grades K-8), this highly interactive health science exhibition focuses on the biology of aging, aging across the animal kingdom, healthy aging, and aging of the brain. Look into the future as you watch your face age up to 25 years. Track the U.S. population’s incredible increasing life span. Search for the biological secrets of aging—what causes aging and is there a way to slow down the process? Be amazed at the astonishing giant tortoise that never seems to age and other extraordinary feats of aging in the animal kingdom. Marvel at the wonders of the human body and “see” which cells are older and which are younger. Analyze the amazing human brain and discover how normal aging of the brain differs from changes caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Can you affect the aging process? Find out in this fun and informative exhibit about biology, aging, animals, and you!

Growing Up with the Berenstain Bears
(September 28, 2007-Jan 6, 2008)

With the guidance of the Berenstain Bear characters, visitors explore experiences common and critical to growing up. Immersive environments based on the classic Berenstain illustrations provide a unique opportunity for children to explore the difficulties, challenges, and opportunities of growing up.

Amusement Park Science
(January 22-April 1, 2008)

What kind of science keeps roller coasters on track and puts the bump in bumper cars? Your students will explore physics through this amusement park of exhibits! Take a spin to explore the dizzying effects of angular momentum, create a big wave, and learn the ups and downs of potential and kinetic energy. Gravity, momentum, friction, velocity, rotation, and mass converge in these exhibits to provide hands-on fun with forces, science, and math.