New Science Center Exhibits: Sesame Street, Star Trek

The Louisville Science Center announced new exhibits scheduled through 2011 today. WFPL’s Elizabeth Kramer has details.The exhibits include Sesame Street: Presents the Body opening in July and Start Trek: The Exhibition, which opens in January 2011. And next summer, the center will host The Chronicles of Narnia: The Exhibition.Executive director Joanna Haas says the exhibits are just part the center’s efforts to boost science literacy in the community."This week alone we have 60 kids in spring breaks camps," she says. "We’ve doubled our capacity for summer camps. We’ve launched our Scientific Proofs series — our adult dialogue series— and we’ve tackled subjects like health care and we’re coming up on a conversation next week about bioterrorism."Hass says Sesame Street: Presents the Body, which opens in July, has significant science- related content."Issues like childhood obesity are facing here in the state of Kentucky tenfold as in comparison to other places," she says. "And so, we think this is a great platform for not only having fun with science but for helping our community take on some of these more complicated subjects of health and fitness."Haas says she thinks Start Trek: The Exhibition could be a big hit."The exhibition, we think, has a tremendous opportunity to draw regional tourists," she says. "It really builds on the pop culture phenomenon — TV series and countless movies — that in many ways helped inspire early astronauts and scientists to push the boundaries of what we know about science."The Science Center also unveiled a new logo the reflects the huge mirror outside the center's entrance.Haas says attendance and corporate support has been good during this economic recession even as individual contributions have declined.