Wonders of Discovery

We previewed the Ralph M. Parsons Discovery Center at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County the other day with the fourth grade of the 32nd Street School, and we all liked it.

There were a few minutes during the preview when it was uncertain whether the chocolate-chip cookies and milk, or some visiting television personalities, would prove more attractive than the hands-on exhibitions themselves, but in the end the live owl, possum and snake, the stuffed bears, the study displays of minerals, insects, feathers, leathers and fossils prevailed. This surely is going to be a busy place on weekends, when whole families are encouraged to share the investigation of natural sciences and history.

“The center is for children of all ages,” Dr. Craig Black, museum director, told us. The educational staff regards 6 to 8 as the threshold age for full appreciation, but one staff member plans to bring his 2-year-old and the grown-ups seemed as engrossed as the children..

The Parsons Foundation put up the bulk of the money for the Discovery Center. It occupies the wing that once was the Hall of Evolving Life, overlooking the rose garden, with overflow space on the mezzanine for classrooms and additional exhibitions. Visitors are encouraged to touch everything--including the stuffed mammals, boxes of butterflies, microscopes with a variety of slides, and shortwave and longwave light viewers for examining rocks that glow.

Mattel Inc. contributed some supplementary money, which explained why He-Man and She-Ra, or reasonable living facsimiles of them, were among the special guests at the preview. They seemed as interested as the fourth-graders in the exhibits, although She-Ra needed some help when she lost her sword while unrolling a python skin with the help of three wide-eyed youngsters. Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl were also there, with a Forest Service escort, but Smokey was upstaged by the stuffed polar and grizzly bears and Woodsy seemed no match for the live burrowing owl from the California desert that the Greater Los Angeles Zoo sent over. The zoo and the Children’s Museum will be coordinating programs with the Discovery Center.

One 10-year-old summed up our feelings spontaneously by informing her teacher, “Oh, this is the best place.”

You can see whether you agree any day except Monday from 10 to 5.