Magnetic attraction: K-8 students enjoy exhibit which is gathering money for museum project

Kenny Meyers has a new appreciation for magnets thanks to a new exhibit in Rowe Hall.

“It’s really cool when you can make the fluid move back and forth,” the Beal City Elementary School fourth-grader said. “It looks like a porcupine.”

The Mount Pleasant Discovery Museum tapped into the imaginations of hundreds of kindergarten through eighth-grade students during a grand opening of its magnetic field exhibit Saturday.

The exhibit is housed at the Museum of Cultural and Natural History in Rowe Hall and includes several hands-on games and activities.

“I hope the kids take away the memory of a good day,” said Heather Frisch, vice chair of the Discovery Museum.

Frisch set up several exhibition booths for the children to enjoy.

“It doesn’t matter how much you read about magnets,” Frisch said. “The hands-on experience is what they learn from.”

The Discovery Museum sent out invitations to schools in Isabella, Clare, Mecosta, Gratiot, Midland and Montcalm counties, resulting in a flood of students that passed through the museum’s doors.

Four-year-old Cordelia Brown of White Pine Montessori played with magnetic blocks.

“I’m building a tower,” Cordelia said. “This is fun.”

Jennifer Fields teaches at Mid Michigan Community College and serves as chairperson of the Discovery Museum.

“We think the community would benefit from this option,” Fields said. “It would be good for families, schools, my kids and lots and lots of other people’s kids.

Shelly Smith, the Discovery Museum’s secretary of treasury, said the museum was invited to use temporary exhibit space in Rowe Hall because it does not have its own building yet. Gathering money to back the project is still a work in progress — officials anticipate the first year’s operating costs will be around $3 million — but Smith said officials hope to break ground later this year on a permanent structure.

Jared Defrain, a 16-year-old junior at Mount Pleasant High School, serves as vice president of the Youth Advisory Committee.

The committee voted to grant the museum $2,500.

“We all talked about it,” Defrain said. “We thought it would impact a large number of kids,”

The Discovery Museum plans to keep the exhibit open through the summer.