Walking the gallery of the Royal Tyrrell Museum does much for the imagination, but at the end of a tour one may find themself eager to get dirty and hands-on like the palaeontologists who discovered the fossils dotting Alberta.
The ATCO Learning Centre opened in 2003 and has been offering school classes in-depth immersion unlike most other museums.
“Out in the gallery you can only do so much as far as hands-on goes,” says Tyrrell science educator Jennifer Dick, who’s been with the museum for three years.
“It offers us the opportunity to get the kids to hold and touch and connect with palaeontology.”
Schools bring students in to do a number of activities in the centre’s four classrooms, from digging up ancient turtle fossils using the same dentist’s pick and toothbrush a palaeontologist would use, learning how to identify past life using a state-of-the-art SMART Board, to even camping in the halls of the famed museum for a night with their friends.
“I think it draws a lot of people into the museum who wouldn't necessarily come in,” Dick said. “I know education has been a big part of the Tyrrell since it started, but before, we didn’t have the facilities to offer these kinds of opportunities.”
ATCO was keen to support an Alberta-based effort.
“The Tyrrell Museum and learning centre fit perfectly with ATCO’s philosophy of improving the life of the communities we serve,” said Siegfried Kiefer, Managing Director of Utilities at ATCO Ltd.
“It’s one of those sights you just have to see, I know whenever I have relatives come visit me it’s a for sure item on our agenda for at least a day.”
ATCO, an Alberta-based corporation in the business of power generation, utilities, and global enterprises decided to sponsor the learning centre earlier this decade.
“The Tyrrell approached us with an idea for a learning centre, it struck a chord with us and we jumped on board,” said Kiefer.
The centre won numerous awards in 2009. The Distance Learning Program won a Canadian Museums Association Outstanding Achievement in Education Award; the web-based version of Cretaceous Crime Scene won an American Association of Museums Honorable Mention; and the Distance Learning Promotional Video won an American Association of Museums Bronze Award.
Programs at the Tyrrell run every week, and in 2009 eleven different programs were each offered over 1500 times, to approximately 37,000 visitors from 41 countries.
Over 20,000 students have been through the learning centre, being educated on the “wonders of our history,” said Kiefer.
But all these awards and statistics about the success of the ATCO Learning Centre is not what it’s about.
“The kids just love it here, for the most part they all want to be here.”
