Ask older members if they ever watched the TV show Barney Miller? The comedy cop show won an Emmy award back in 1982. That’s the same year Alabama Public Radio first went on the air. We’re observing forty years of serving our listeners by re-airing the best of our stories. That includes this one from 2014. APR collaborated with the University of Alabama’s Center for Public Television for two years on a series called “Alabama, INC.” We spotlighted local business leaders including the head of Birmingham’s McWane Science Center. Here’s that story from the APR archives.
There’s a lot of hubbub during a typical day at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham. You might think to yourself, there’s too much fun going on here for this to be educational. Youngsters at the center are pressing their noses up against a glass case full of scorpions—ick. Or jumping around on a floor that lights up. And, of course, there’s the dreaded bed of nails…
“Everybody loves the bed of nails,” says Amy Templeton. “If we’re here a hundred years from now, we’ll have the bed of nails.”
That’s Amy Templeton—more on her in a moment. Before you ask…nobody gets hurt on the bed of nails. Your body weight gets distributed, so nothing gets punctured. It’s also makes the experience, well…more sciency. Okay, back to Templeton. She says it’s more than just what the kids think is fun…
“One of my favorite things at McWane is when the parents and the children are doing things together," she recalls. "And then the children are ready to move, but the parents aren’t quite finished with that exhibit.”
And, those observations count. Templeton is the CEO at McWane. But, she says she never lost her parent’s eye view of what works and what doesn’t. She knows what she likes because before working at McWane, she was a customer—make that one of two customers, the other was her son… “We moved here when he was three, and I was a single mom," says Templeton. "And, I loved that he came and had a fabulous time. He wasn’t thinking about learning, that wasn’t in his mind when he was here.”
So, part of the job at McWane is to keep mom and dad involved while the kids are busy on the bed of nails, looking at fossils, or watching the scorpions. That process includes a little help prompted from the sidelines to make sure the science lessons stick…
“We also try to put signage, so parents know what to do or what to ask their children, so parents can help children learn during this," she says. "And, I love that children think this is a wonderful place to come and play.”
That even includes signs in the bathrooms…“There are, yes!” says Templeton.
And, she still has a soft spot for certain exhibits at McWane… “Absolutely, one of my favorite areas, since my son started coming here when he was three, was the world of water,” she says. “I love the aquariums that are on the lower level. We have a shark and ray touch tank where you can actually touch sharks and stingrays, that have their stinger removed, and I love see up close, what’s in the Cahaba River.”
Before McWane, Templeton worked at Vanderbilt University where she raised money for the school—a lot of it. She and her team brought in four hundred million dollars in direct donations and another one hundred million in bequests. That attracted the attention of the Birmingham Museum of Art where Templeton worked as Chief Operating Officer for fourteen years. Templeton says raising money at McWane is a big part of what she does, but she follows the same formula. “It’s all about telling that story,” says Templeton. “And, getting people excited yourself, and people get excited about you do. Then, they want to be part of it. Then, asking for the money is easy once you generate that enthusiasm.”
But, along with managing things and raising the dollars, Templeton says she has certain underserved audiences she keeps an eye on. Specifically, kids who can fall through the cracks when comes to turning science fun into science careers. Templeton says it comes down to one question “How do we reignite that passion for science?” she asks. “We know that middle school is the age where you lose a lot of the kids, especially girls, in science. That’s the age when they start thinking, science is not for me, it’s for the boys.”
Then, there are the toddlers. McWane believes strongly enough in the preschool crowd to spend five million dollars on a science center expansion aimed at kids barely old enough to read. Templeton admits these students won’t be splitting the atom at the new wing at McWane, but they’re old enough to be exposed to certain things relating to science… “Social interaction, shapes, forms, textures,” says Templeton. “And, exploring and trying to see “can I change what this looks like, can I change what this does?’ “
Getting the money for that took a little wheeling and dealing with the city of Birmingham. One condition was that kids from licensed daycare centers get in for free. Templeton said yes, and now the new expansion at the McWane Science Center is set to open in 2015. Amy Templeton and I will sit down and talk about how she got from here to there, on Alabama, Inc. on your local Alabama Public Television station.
