Discovery Space Offers Undiscovered Opportunities to Benefit All Ages

Having seen the kid-friendly logo of “Discovery Space” on the building’s stone façade, I assumed I knew what was happening on the inside of 1224 N. Atherton St. What else could it be but a place where children enjoy hands-on learning?  

Well, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. 

Fortunately, Alvin de Levie, a good friend and fellow RTRT (“Raised Townie, Returned Townie”) invited me to join him on a tour of Discovery Space. Alvin is a graduate of State High and Penn State who is a member of the university’s Board of Trustees. He gladly supports positive town or gown initiatives—especially where the two intersect.

So there I was one day in late March, entering the front door of the facility and being greeted by Alvin and by Michele Crowl, the nonprofit’s executive director since February of 2017. Together with some of Crowl’s colleagues, they showed me a complex that is much more than I imagined.

Simply put, Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania is a learning center that caters to all ages—not just young children. Amazingly, it offers hands-on learning within such diverse disciplines as biology, meteorology, physics and robotics and it provides experience in such varied pursuits as pottery making, woodworking and 3D printing. Yep, everything from soup to nuts for everyone from the preschooler to the retired professor.

LIFELONG LEARNING

In fact, so many things happen at 1224 North Atherton that several organizational names are needed to represent all the facets of activity. “Discovery Space” serves as the umbrella name for the entire nonprofit organization and it’s also the particular name for the children’s hands-on learning area.  Adjoining that space is the Marine Life Center where all kinds of aquatic critters are displayed in freshwater and saltwater aquariums. Finally, at the back of the facility is The Rivet, a makerspace for individuals 14-years-old and up to engage in all kinds of hobbies, crafts and trades.      

“My kids have grown up here,” says Aaron Kaufman, a 15-year resident of the State College area. “From the time they could walk, effectively, they’ve been coming to Discovery Space, first when it was downtown. Learning about science, about computers, about art—and in a way that is driven by their own curiosity. They love it, The Rivet in particular.”

IMPRESSIVE TOUR

Our tour begins among the many hands-on exhibits for little kids. Or maybe not so little. Crowl notes that children between the ages of 2 to 10 predominate in Discovery Space but middle schoolers and high schoolers love to play with the exhibits—when no one is watching.  

Crowl earned a Ph.D. in science education from Penn State, and her background is obvious as she guides Alvin and me through the Discovery Space displays. She begins, however, by pointing to an artistic feature known as the Color Playhouse, which is adorned by a mural of native plants and animals that is being produced by local artist Hannah Simon. “Everything else,” says Crowl, “is hands-on STEM—science, technology, engineering and math.”

Indeed, the “everything else,” such as the following exhibits, create a scientific wonderland for curious kids: 

• The Friction Racer allows children to create a race between balls placed on varying surfaces, and they quickly realize that smoother surfaces create less friction and a ball that rolls faster.
• The Heartbeat Drum detects a person’s heartbeat through electronic sensors and activates the beating of a drum—in time with the heart. Alvin, a sometimes-tough attorney, was happy to see scientific proof that he has a heart. (I wasn’t surprised because I’ve observed his concern for the people and institutions of Happy Valley.)
• The Green Screen allows children to stand in front of a video camera and see how television can combine an image of a person with a background image.
• The Bee Hive, put on hold during the COVID pandemic, will soon be returning as a favored attraction. “You put on the little bee costume,” says Crowl, “and then you buzz over here to the 4-foot-tall flowers, pick up nectar and pollen and put them in your little pocket. Then you buzz into the hive and on top of the dance floor you do the waggle dance which is how bees communicate with other bees. So you live out the social life of bees.” 

HELP FROM PSU & ACCUWEATHER

Many more exhibits are already available at Discovery Space, but with the proximity of Penn State, new ones are always in the pipeline. Although Crowl notes that all of Penn State’s colleges have interfaced with Discovery Space during the last 10 years, the mechanical engineering department has shown up most frequently.  Under the leadership of Dr. John Lamancusa (now retired) and Dr. Jason Moore, mechanical engineering students have designed, built, tested and refined many exhibits.  

Crowl is especially thrilled by upgrades that will soon appear. “This exhibit here is getting refinished,” she says as she points in one direction, “that exhibit is getting refinished, and there’s one in the front window that’s getting redone. And a new weather exhibition, being funded by AccuWeather and its founder/CEO, Dr. Joel Myers, will be installed later this spring.”

So what about this new addition arising from a partnership with AccuWeather, Happy Valley’s famed producer of worldwide weather information? “We know from the green screen technology they provided 10 years ago that kids enjoy playing the role of weather forecaster,” says Crowl.  “The new exhibition will be comprised of many smaller temperature, precipitation and wind-related interactives, several weather maps from AccuWeather showing live feed and a much larger green screen display.”  

PARENTS ARE PLEASED

With such a variety of learning exercises available, it’s understandable why kids and their parents are so enamored by Discovery Space. 

“We have found children hiding under The Friction Racer as their parents were trying to leave,” says Crowl. “Kids don’t want to leave Discovery Space.” And, she adds, “Because we’re close to several grocery stores, we’re a bargaining chip for parents. They’ll say something like, ‘If you behave in the store, we’ll stop at Discovery Space on the way home.’”

Melanie Wilkins, a mother of four, appreciates the hands-on learning that her children experience at Discovery Space. 

“It’s not just fun and play for them,” she says. “It’s also learning and experiencing.” Adds Wilkins, “When we first moved to State College (her family now lives in Centre Hall), my husband came here for work and we were completely unknown in the area. So we found this place and it was a way for us to get out of the hotel room. It was a little piece of heaven, an escape.”

Nicole Levine enjoys frequently bringing her little boy, Oliver, to Discovery Space. “To me,” she says, “this place is extra-special because I grew up in Philly and my parents took me to The Franklin Institute or the Please Touch Museum. So it means a lot for me to take him somewhere like this.”

In her job at Penn State, Levine interacts with people who have come here from across the globe. “When they look up State College or Penn State on the Internet,” she says, “they see Penn State football and the drinking scene. Well, I’m not knocking the bars, I love them too. But we can be more than a drinking town. I think this place is an important first of its kind for State College.”

MARINE LIFE WITH PERSONALITIES

As our group continues its tour, we pass through several doorways and we are suddenly immersed in the second part of Discovery Space’s science emphasis, the Marine Life Center. Utilizing a medium-sized freshwater aquarium and a large, 100-gallon saltwater tank, the facility conveys age-appropriate science along with a heartwarming appreciation for the personalities of its creatures.

Devin Hennigan has served as a Marine Life staff member since last spring when he finished his master’s degree in fisheries oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Not only does Hennigan help users with the center’s tools for studying various fish, crabs and coral, but he communicates in an engaging style. 

One can imagine the excitement of a 5-year old or 10-year old as Hennigan points to various species. “We have two lemon damselfish,” he says. “Zest is more social, while Meringue just hangs out over here. Our clownfish over there, everyone likes to call her Nemo but she’s a little more bossy than Nemo (the Disney character).”  

THE RIVET IS A CONNECTOR

Our tour will end at the big garage-like space that is now called “The Rivet,” but not before we’ve heard a bit of history, gleaned some vision for the future and observed some of the coolest tools and contraptions anywhere in central Pennsylvania. First, I ask Crowl to explain how The Rivet was born and why it carries that name.

“When we first moved into this building in 2017,” says the native of Hollidaysburg, “we could not afford to rent the garage area. The landlord provided a grace period until we settled in and then made it clear that if we had no plans to rent more than our limited space at that time, they would pursue other inquiries.”

One day, a gentleman from a vehicle decal business stopped in and asked for a tour of the garage. And that was all the motivation Crowl needed to develop a plan for the 5,000 square feet of high bay garage space. “At that point,” she says, “I had been in conversations for several years about starting a large makerspace, but there was always a missing component. Maybe it was physical space or leadership…and always money. But then I met Camille Sogin. She was the spouse of a grad student, and she had previously worked in a makerspace. With her input, I started to see a path forward.” 

Feeling both a push and a pull, Crowl and her colleagues decided to test the waters of expansion. Most significantly, they applied for and received a $100,000 Centre Inspires grant from Centre Foundation. That meant they “only” needed to raise an additional $250,000 to launch this new endeavor.  When that money came in, the new makerspace was on its way toward a formal opening in January 2020. 

“We named it ‘The Rivet,’” says Crowl, “because rivets connect materials and we planned the space to be a connecting point—yes, for materials, but more importantly for community members.”   

EARLY AND CONTINUING SUCCESS

Today, The Rivet is blessed with an excellent and ever-growing array of extraordinary resources. It’s the place to go if you need a pottery studio, a woodworking shop or (in the near future) a welding and metalworking shop. It’s also the place to use a large format printer, a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter or a 3D printer. 

According to Evan Rosengrant, The Rivet’s manager, access to such machines is crucial to area residents who live in small quarters. 

“I can’t fit a 40-inch laser in my apartment.” he says. 

Meanwhile, partnering organizations like OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Penn State’s resource for community learning) and Nittany Valley Woodturners consistently use The Rivet. And kids below 14 are welcome at The Rivet each Saturday morning for adult-supervised sessions.  

To individuals like Maria Barton, The Rivet offers a delightful change-of-pace from her job as director of account leadership for State College’s Snavely Associates. Barton has regularly gone to the pottery studio ever since she and her husband attended an introductory course there. 

“The Rivet, for me, has been a chance to disconnect,” she says. “When I come here, I can’t be checking my work email because my hands are covered in clay.  So it’s kind of a nice escape. I tell everyone about it.” 

Such words are music to the ears of Michele Crowl. Prior to starting The Rivet, Discovery Space could only meet the needs of children and adolescents below age 15.  But now, Crowl says, “With the opening of The Rivet, we’ve turned into a lifelong learning gem.”

A KEY GOAL

With growth comes further opportunities and challenges. For Discovery Space, the challenge is space and, of course, more space means more dollars. Gone are the days when the organization had only a week’s worth of money in the bank, but it’s still no easy task for Crowl and her colleagues to account for an annual budget of $1 million and raise additional funds for a larger facility.  

“The goal,” she says, “is to have almost double the size of this.” And as she gestures around the current facility on North Atherton, I’m computing that nearly doubling the current 18,000 square feet will mean a new facility of some 30,000 square feet. “We would like to double the size of The Rivet, and we want to have more classroom space. Right now, we’re turning away kids from our summer camps, but if we had more space we could have more camps and bigger group meetings.” 

So what does Aaron Kaufman think about all this? Not only has his family been involved with Discovery Space longer than any other family, but as the executive director of Penn State Hillel, he knows about non-profit organizations. 

“It really comes down to the impact, to the return on investment,” says Kaufman. “The opportunities afforded to children, teenagers and to adults here at The Rivet are incredible. I see through the lens of a parent with my own children. They’re going to have a foundation in science and engineering and computers and all kinds of things that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think this is an incredible place to make a difference financially because I’ve seen the impact on my own children.”