Breaking new ground

Volunteers, students and community representatives armed with hard hats and shovels broke ground Monday at the future WonderLab museum site, located at Fourth Street near Morton Street.\nThe construction of a new WonderLab marks a new stepping stone for the hands-on science museum. The ceremony featured speeches from Mayor John Fernandez, Rep. Mark Kruzan and the museum's Executive Director, Catherine Olmer. \nThe new WonderLab location is scheduled to open to the public in the spring of 2003. \nSince January 1998, WonderLab has been open to the public at an interim site on West Sixth Street in downtown Bloomington across from the courthouse. The museum offers unique and exciting activities for children and adults that have led to growing support for the new museum location, Fernandez said. \nIn 1995, WonderLab established itself as a non-profit organization beginning as a traveling outreach program. Through the hard work of volunteers and donations, WonderLab grew and opened its interim location, allowing the staff and volunteers to obtain work experience and create projects and activities that can be applied to the new location, Olmer said. \nFernandez spoke about the WonderLab's role in the community. \n"WonderLab has been made possible through the hard work of community volunteers and the overwhelming support of the city council to donate this land," he said. "This is a part of the downtown revitalization that will bring new economic opportunities to this area." \nIn October 1998, the Bloomington City Council unanimously voted to donate the land to WonderLab as the permanent site for the museum. It will attract people and schools from surrounding counties, drawing more people into the downtown area, Fernandez said. \nWonderLab has raised approximately $2.7 million dollars through pledges from businesses and individuals throughout the community, Olmer said. Kruzan has worked closely with WonderLab to secure $200,000 in grants from the Build Indiana Fund, which uses revenue from the Indiana lottery to help fund local government and non-profit construction projects, he said.\n"The hours upon hours of hard work and phone calls that have led to this day has truly been an investment," Kruzan said.\nOlmer spoke about her dreams and aspirations of WonderLab. \n"This is truly an exiting day. I remember in the winter of 1995 when 12 people gathered to talk about their dreams of WonderLab, and those dreams turned into an organization," Olmer said. "This is the day that I pinch myself just to make sure that I'm not dreaming." \nAbout 115,000 children have visited WonderLab's interim location, she said. \nFourth Street Realty and Weddle Bros. Construction Company Inc., have played a key role in prioritizing WonderLab and allowing the construction to begin on time. The two-story, 15,000 square-foot museum will consist of 100 new exhibits, including a 24-foot grapevine climbing maze, a working beehive, an indoor hot air balloon that rises two stories and an outdoor nature preserve. The Outdoor Nature Area will include local species of plants and flowers, and will allow visitors to experience outdoor science programs and demonstrations. \nDonna Kinkead, a science teacher at University Elementary School, took her sixth grade students on a field trip to the ground-breaking ceremony. \n"I encourage my students to visit WonderLab and they also receive extra credit for extra curricular activities at the museum," she said.\nKinkead also works as a volunteer as a summer science school teacher at WonderLab's summer day camps. The day camps allow high-school students to intern at the museum during the summer. Fernandez praised the educational science activities at the museum.\n"This will bring opportunity to the children of our community and the kid inside of us," he said.