Canadians celebrate the ‘magic’ as Ontario Science Centre turns 50

TheStar.com
January 29, 2019
Isabel Teotonio

It’s a place where “magic happens.”

It’s where a model of the Wright Brothers’ inaugural flight inspired a young boy to build a hang glider and fuelled a lifelong passion for science and engineering evident in his award-winning novels. It’s where a father told his young daughter, a future Nobel Prize laureate, that lasers would be the way of the future. And it’s where a rookie astronaut simulated a landing on the moon with a legendary NASA flight director at mission control.

For five decades, the Ontario Science Centre has brought science to life with immersive and interactive exhibits for more than 52 million visitors. To celebrate its 50th birthday, 2019 will include special exhibitions, installations and films, with the first exhibit opening Monday.

“For 50 years, the Science Centre has encouraged visitors to transform themselves and their communities through science,” says Maurice Bitran, CEO and Chief Science Officer, in a statement. “Our incredible lineup of experiences in 2019 will help spark creativity and innovation through invention, inspire the next generation of space explorers and take us on a journey of discovery through the human mind.”

Terry Fallis -- author of six national bestselling novels including his latest One Brother Shy -- first visited the Science Centre after it opened in September 1969, and returned often, awed by the flight, transportation and space exhibits.

When he was 10, Fallis and a classmate were mesmerized by a display that included a model of one of the Wright Brothers’ gliders.

“(The Science Centre) was a place that always inspired, and energized and motivated me to do things and to go a little further than kids might normally go,” recalls Fallis. “It gave us a bit more licence to push a little further and not just draw pictures of hang gliders, but to try and build one.”

The pair built three hang gliders, part of what they dubbed the “Falcon Series.” Falcon 1, was built in the backyard of Fallis’s Leaside home, during the winter, with bed sheets stretched across wings made from hockey sticks. When it was finished, they headed for a park, where Fallis slid down a hill in a toboggan, holding the glider above his head, hoping it would take flight. Nothing happened beyond developing sore arms.

Undaunted, the duo got serious about Falcon 2, which was their most successful model. They created flaps to control it in flight, fashioned rope into a seat for long trips and had Fallis’s mother sew material to cover the wings. Again, they hit the park. Wearing a hockey helmet, Fallis raced down the hill, piloting Falcon 2.

He felt lighter, but never once, he says, did it threaten to take to the air. Falcon 3 also never got off the ground.

Still, says Fallis, “I have quite happy and vivid memories of that period.”

The Science Centre, located on Don Mills Rd. near Eglinton Ave. E, nourished a passion for science and engineering, which led him to complete an engineering degree. And in tribute to that “very special place,” a scene in his novel Up and Down, is set there.

For Donna Strickland, the memory of visiting the Science Centre as a child isn’t quite so vivid -- but it’s woven into family stories.

The University of Waterloo professor and winner of the Nobel Prize in physics for 2018, told CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks about visiting the Science Centre with her father, an electrical engineer.

During their tour, her father stopped at the big laser and said, “Donna, lasers are the way of the future. You want to see this.”

She doesn’t remember much of that day -- her mother used to tell that story -- but maybe something stuck. Strickland would go on to win science’s top honour for her groundbreaking work in the field of laser physics. She helped develop a laser technique called chirped pulse amplification, paving the way for laser eye surgery and leading to numerous applications in medicine and industry.

Dr. Dave Williams, a retired Canadian astronaut who’s been on two space missions and holds the Canadian spacewalking record, knows the power of the Science Centre in shaping young minds.

“It’s a place where magic happens,” he says. “The museum is all about a hands-on interactive experience and being able to do things, and that’s so important with kids: To be able to stimulate their curiosity.”

That’s evident when he participates in workshops with students in the Challenger Learning Centre, which is where they do simulated space missions, role-playing as astronauts and mission controllers.

“You see them really getting into the role … and you wonder whether or not that will capture their imagination and fuel their passion to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering or math.”

One particularly memorable simulated space mission was in 1992, when Williams had just become an astronaut. The event was to mark the anniversary of NASA’s Apollo program, which successfully landed humans on the moon between 1969 and 1972.

In Toronto, Williams and a group of students, simulated landing a lunar module on the moon. Meanwhile, another group of students at Johnson Space Center in Houston acted as mission control with the legendary NASA flight director Gene Kranz, famous for returning the Apollo 13 crew to Earth and averting tragedy.

“It was pretty exciting for the kids … It was really exciting (for me).”

Opening Monday at the Science Centre is the exhibition “Inventorium 2.0,” which is a space where the scientific method meets the artistic process. In the summer, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, “Astronauts and Women in Space,” will explore what it’s like to blast off into space. And in
September, opening during the Science Centre’s birthday weekend, is “The Mind,” which explores everything about the mind, including decision-making, emotions and memory.

A full lineup of programming can be found on the Science Centre’s website www.ontariosciencecentre.ca