Science Community Center at Modesto Junior College: Ribbon Cutting on May 21st! Come and have a look...

If I've been blogging less of late, it has something to do with the end of the semester, finals week, and the big move to the new building that is the end of a 10 year long journey from the original sketches on paper. The Science Community Center at Modesto Junior College, a facility built with funds from our own local community, is set to open for tours and observations on May 21st at 10 AM (ribbon cutting at 10 AM, tours to follow). The first classes are being taught this summer session.

I feel that this may be the finest facility for teaching science at any community college in the state (yes, I am biased). It includes a planetarium with the most advanced star projector in North America, a state-of-the-art observatory, and a vastly expanded Great Valley Museum including Science on a Sphere. We expect in the next year to install an adjacent outdoor nature laboratory as well. The facility includes laboratories and smart classrooms for Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Earth Science, and of course, Geology.

If you are anywhere near Modesto (easy freeway access), I encourage you to stop by. I'll be giving tours on the third floor with our new geology displays all day. It has been a long hard road reaching this day, with thousands of hours logged by our staff people making sure that we have the finest facility possible (and we did it within budget!). I deeply appreciate the efforts of the staff and faculty members of our division who put their heart and soul into this incredible project.

Six Weeks to go...I think this Science Community Center just might happen!

If you've been following Geotripper for awhile, you may realize that we have been watching the construction of our Science Community Center on the campus of Modesto Junior College. It is a complex that will include the instructional areas for Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Earth Science, Geology and Astronomy, as well as housing the Great Valley Museum, an observatory, and a planetarium. The building represents the commitment of the people of Modesto and the surrounding communities to the advancement of science in our region, a region that experienced the worst of the recent depression and then some. We have the highest unemployment and the highest foreclosure rate in the country, but we came together to create what will be one of the finest centers for science education in Central California.

It felt for a long time like it wouldn't happen, and when construction started, it looked like it would be cut back and huge compromises made. But events conspired to allow an even better facility than originally planned (in short, the recession cut down on construction costs).

 For the longest time the only thing we had to visualize the center was a foundation and a styrofoam model...

 But then, the framework started rising and one could almost imagine a building...

 And now we come to this afternoon. We toured the building, coming to the realization that it will be completed in less than two months! We will be moving in for the spring semester (barring all the myriad things that could go wrong).

 But it is getting close. There is carpeting and cabinetry in many of the offices and labs.

 There's no telescope in the observatory, nor a projector in the planetarium, but there are foundations ready for them.

 We're almost there...

Oh jeesh...I've got two months to plan on moving 20 years worth of geological accumulations...

...and somehow fit it into the new geology lab and preparation area...

I expect the next report on the Science Community Center will be the building dedication!

My God, It's Full of Stars (or will be eventually; and children too)

No, this is not really a post about the last line from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's about the planetarium that is beginning to emerge in the center of the photograph. It will be full of stars in a manner of speaking very soon, and there will be lots of children inside who will be learning about the wonders of the Universe.

This is exciting news for those of us who live in the Modesto area. For all the time I spend on this blog talking about the wonders of California, well, sometimes Modesto and the surrounding area comes up a bit short. We have been declared 99th out of 100 on the best places to live in the US by some compilers, and that is because we have some of the worst air quality of any place in the nation, and are kind of famous for having the highest, or near highest rate of stolen cars. Our economy is in a shambles. You think that the national unemployment rate of 9% is bad? Ours is around 18%, and many of the rest are underemployed, working part-time. Benefits? Hardly. I'm not sure I can recall any time in the last twenty years that the unemployment rate has fallen below 10%. It is truly a depression here. Part of our problem is that we have one of the most uneducated populations anywhere.

It's actually so bad that a local pundit suggested that instead of trying to educate our children for a better future, that we concentrate on bringing in more employers who specialize in unskilled laborers, because that's the only "short-term" solution that he can think of. The problem has always been that those kind of short term ideas become permanent. I can't accept this. It's a hopeless attitude, and it is poisonous. Education has to be the ticket to a better community. That's the reason I've been in the trenches here for twenty years, along with many primary and secondary school teachers who work without resources and with poor institutional support. They're good people trying to make a difference for their kids.

That's what makes the picture above so exciting. Several years ago, the community decided to invest in a better future, and voted for a huge bond act to finance the renovation of our college, almost from the ground up. One of the centerpiece projects is the Science Community Center.

Our center may very well open for classes in the fall of 2012. For the first time, our college students and children from area schools will finally have access to a state-of-the-art planetarium, an observatory, and a natural history museum that until now has been housed, well, in an old house. There will (probably) be an outdoor learning environment with a large pond and native vegetation.There will be a modern facility for the chemistry, physics, biology, and astronomy laboratories, and more to the point: new classrooms and labs for earth science and geology!

Our local community decided to fight for a better future. 99th? We've got our problems and we'll probably never be a swanky chic city that vies for number 1. But we'll make sure our kids have a decent chance to learn about the fascinating world that exists out there, and the cosmos beyond. They deserve that much from us. They certainly don't deserve the kind of thinking that says build another sweatshop, and pay them minimum wage. 

That's my office on the third floor. It actually has a floor, sort of, but still lacks walls.