Editor’s Note: Explorit’s Grand Re-Opening is scheduled for this weekend, October 2nd and 3rd. Reserve your entry day and time. Take the Healthy Planet, Healthy You QUIZ.

Explorit Science Center is excited to announce our next exhibit, opening in October! “Healthy Planet, Healthy You” will feature hands-on science exploration stations for visitors to experience.

Guests will use real science tools, be challenged by fun engineering tasks, and learn about the connections in the ecosystem between air, water, soil, plants, and animals. Each station will highlight the effects of human activity and choices that are made every day that effect the overall “health” of the planet.

“Healthy Planet, Healthy You” will explore a variety of topics including air quality and the respiratory system, renewable energies, water quality, soil, photosynthesis, food webs, and more! Guests to the museum will find hands-on activities featuring descriptions and interpreting the Air Quality Index, as well as view healthy and diseased lung samples under microscopes.

Young engineers can build windmills with different types of materials to see if any are more efficient than others. Guests will observe different types of water and soil samples and learn what different tests can tell us about the health of an area. How does air, water, sun, soil, plants, and animals all connect? Find out by building food webs and seeing how the elimination of a single organism can affect an entire ecosystem.

Other than our main exhibit our guests can also explore our backyard pollinator garden featuring new plants to attract local pollinators and keep them happy and healthy. Picnic tables in located in our garden will make a nice place for guests to take a break or have a snack while visiting.

Our smallest visitors will have fun exploring our new Discovery Den, designed for those five-years-old and younger. The Discovery Den includes a variety of tactile toys and books related to science and nature to help develop those budding brains.

Our guests will continue to have the opportunity to visit our live animal friends in our Animal Alcove. All our animals continue to thrive in their enclosures with new substrates, food and water dishes, and enrichment items. We still have three varieties of cockroaches, including orange spotted, Madagascar hissing, and giant cave cockroaches.

Our Chilean rose-haired tarantula will also be displayed for our guests to observe. We also have two California kingsnakes, Lizzie and Felix, on display with new, larger water dishes for them to curl up and submerge in. Lastly, our blue-tongued skink, Tiger, is also available for our guests to view.

Explorit staff and volunteers have been working hard to update and freshen up the exhibit spaces and building during the closure. We look forward to reopening back up to our community and school groups, with extra cleaning and safety procedures in place. We will have a Members Preview Night on Friday, Oct. 1, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Our Grand Opening to the public will be Saturday, Oct. 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., which will include other community vendors to help us celebrate. We will continue the excitement with more public hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3, with a make-and-take craft in our west wing classroom.

We cannot wait to welcome back our valued members and guests visiting us again and exploring their world with “Healthy Planet, Healthy You.” Watch out website and social media channels for the most up to date information on our reopening schedule.

By Sara Thompson

Originally published in the Davis Enterprise Sept 9, 2021

Explorit Science Center is at 3141 Fifth St. For information, call 530-756-0191 or visit http://www.explorit.org, or “like” the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/explorit.fb.

Support Explorit

* Like many small businesses the closures have had a significant impact on our income and sustainability. Now is a great time to donate and help Explorit continue to educate and inspire the scientists of tomorrow: https://www.explorit.org/donate.

* Continue to support Explorit during this uncertain time by becoming a member. An Exploit Membership not only support us but grants the recipient with free visits to Explorit’s regular public hours, discounts on events, summer and after-school camps, and workshops, and gives you ASTC benefits to visit other museums throughout the world. For more information visit https://www.explorit.org/membership or call Explorit at 530-756-0191.