It was a special morning at the Don Harrington Discovery Center as the museum opened its brand new Outdoor Science Park for families to come and enjoy.

science park

Exhibit and Education Director Kyle Hadley said it is a project that has been 16 years in the making and it is great to see it become a reality today.

“This is really exciting because it actually adds another wing essentially,” Hadley said. “We have the east and west wing, and this gives us an outdoor wing. It adds another 40,000 square feet that we can utilize as an educational space to do programs, we can have exhibits outside, and to have for a lunch space as well.”

The new science park includes a life-size T-Rex, a Triceratops, a fossil pit for kids to dig and find different kinds of fossils, music-based activities, a gazing ball, a sun telescope, and more.

“Everyone loves dinosaurs,” Hadley said. “So dinosaurs will be hit, but we’re excited because we’ve had a lot of these exhibits for a while and they are supposed to be outside. So it’s nice to finally put them outside to enjoy, and it makes room inside to have even more exhibits to change out more often.”

Park hours are the same as normal DHDC visitation hours, with the exception of inclement weather. Current DHDC hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m to 3 p.m.

The article is originally published at my high plains.