40 Years of Wonder: How Roper Mountain Science Center Transforms Curiosity into a Career

"I went into engineering because of Roper Mountain." In this heartwarming episode, Director Michael Weeks shares stories of how Roper Mountain Science Center has shaped careers and ignited curiosity across generations for 40 years. Get an insider's tour of this Greenville treasure which serves every elementary and middle school in Greenville County while also offering public programs like - from their popular butterfly encounter and marine touch tanks to their observatory housing North America's eighth largest refractor telescope. Learn about their exciting summer offerings, including camps where kids build robots and solve mysteries, and the new Wild Kratts exhibit that brings the popular PBS show to life. Whether you're a longtime visitor or have never experienced the mountain's magic, this episode will inspire your next science adventure.

Links:

• Roper Mountain Science Center

Transcript

Katy Smith: [0:03] Summertime is almost here, and kids and the grown-ups who love them will be looking for fun things to do. I'm Katie Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County features one of the many excellent outings for any time of year, but especially the summer, Roper Mountain Science Center. For 40 years, Roper Mountain Science Center has been the upstate's premier facility for all ages to learn, explore, and get involved with all things science. Today, you'll hear from Michael Weeks, director, about all that's happening on the mountain, from summer exploration camps to afternoon explorations to Friday starry nights. And who better to interview him than a mom who's on the lookout for summertime activities? That is our own Carrie Hutchins, who serves as Greater Good Greenville's project manager. Be sure to go back and listen to our previous episode with South Carolina Children's Theater.

Carri Hutchens: [0:54] Hi, Michael. Thank you for joining us today.

Michael Weeks: [0:56] Hey, thanks for having me.

Carri Hutchens: [0:57] So we're here to talk about the Roper Mountain Science Center. And I love the Roper Mountain Science Center. I am a member there. I have a toddler and we've been going there. And he really enjoys seeing things like the dinosaur walkway and things like that. So what do you love about working there?

Michael Weeks: [1:16] So there are so many amazing things about Roper Mountain. But one of my favorite things is the immense reach that we have. So because we're owned and operated by Greenville County Schools, all of the elementary schools and middle schools in Greenville County come year after year at Roper Mountain, and we don't have any fee associated with that. So that means that literally every school gets to come, not just some of the schools. So as far as access goes, it's incredible access for kids to really open their eyes and get excited about science and learning and just seeing things that they might not get to otherwise.

Carri Hutchens: [1:49] So can you give us a picture of just the general kinds of programming that you run year-round, and what's something that kids get to do in your programs that they might not experience anywhere else?

Michael Weeks: [1:59] For sure. So we kind of have two big components to the mountain during the school day. We are a field trip destination, so can't just buy a ticket to Roper Mountain during that time period for obviously safety and security reasons. But we have 500, 600 different kids every day coming for unique hands-on learning experiences, and they'll spend the whole day with us. And then on Thursdays and Fridays in the afternoons, we transition to a public program. Public is when general visitors can come to the mountain when I say public. We transition to afternoon explorations, and that's during the school year on Thursdays and Fridays from 1:30 to five, and that enables people to access our new environmental science building, the dinosaur trail that you talked about, the Harrison Hall, which is the building that has the touch tank and the marine lab and the lionfish and the coral reef habitat, our ecology lab, our rainforest, and the living history farm. So a lot of the more popular destinations are open on Thursday and Friday afternoon. Then Friday nights, a different part of the mountain is open because there's a Science Center is very unique among science centers in that we have many different facets of the sciences all in one place. So on Friday nights, it's called our Starry Nights program. And that is where you can go to the planetarium and you can get a ticket to one of three different shows. Each time slot has a different show.

Michael Weeks: [3:22] 4:30 is kind of geared towards elementary age. And then we have a 6 o'clock show, which is geared towards a little bit older group. And then we have the 7:30 show, which is if you're really into astronomy, the 7:30 show is the one to go to for sure. But it's a good cheap date night. A lot of fun for the family because you get to see the planetarium show in the immersive 360 degree dome. If the weather is not rainy, you can go over to the observatory and look through the eighth largest refractor telescope in North America, which is super cool to do.

Carri Hutchens: [3:50] Oh, cool. I didn't know about that.

Michael Weeks: [3:52] Yeah, yeah.

Carri Hutchens: [3:52] That's fun.

Michael Weeks: [3:53] So those are things that are going on during the school year. And then I'll also add that during the summer, we completely transition to where we're open Tuesday through Saturday for our summer adventure, which I'll talk more about. And then we have our summer camps as well. So lots of different things to do on the mountain. Different times of year means different things to do.

Carri Hutchens: [4:10] Yeah. So let's dig into your summer programming. So what do you have going on this summer? And then I'm also curious what you're most excited about. And when you were a kid, what would have most excited you about what you do?

Michael Weeks: [4:20] Let's start with when I was a kid. When I was a kid in fifth grade, I grew up in Ohio, and we went to a place called COSI, which was a science center in Columbus, Ohio. I grew up in Akron. Used to be known as the rubber capital, but now it's known as home of LeBron James. But we went to COSI on our fifth grade field trip and I remember over the atrium area above us was a you could ride a bike out over a wire and there was a counterbalance weight on the bicycle so that it would not tip over if you can picture that. So it was a pretty cool thing that visitors that kids could do is get on this bike and you're probably 20, 30 feet in the air riding out over the atrium.

Michael Weeks: [5:02] You know, probably 20, 30 feet in the air riding out over the atrium. So as you're a fifth grader walking in and you're looking up and you see some kid riding out over the open area, not falling off the bicycle and then learning why that was because counterweight and everything, it was just cool to see. That was kind of one of my first cool science moments. And so that's what we get to do at Roper Mountain is we get to get kids interested and thinking, wow, what is happening here, what is going on with the science, whether it's through meeting an animal.

Michael Weeks: [5:33] Through seeing a dinosaur, through doing robotics, or one of our engineering labs, or one of our chemistry labs. So we try to make science accessible and fun. And we do that in a way by creating a story around it. So it's not just, hey, kids, we're going to learn about chemistry today. It's, hey, we have this murder mystery and we need your help solving it. And so there were these different powders that were found at the scene of the crime and we need you to test these powders to figure out what it is. And we have this, you know, these elements that were found that we need to test to see what the blood type is. And so now you have middle schoolers, especially are not always the easiest to engage as if you remember being a middle schooler. So with middle schoolers, that's who this program is for they are also invested and engaged to find the answer to what the problem is and so if we can immerse students into a story immerse our visitors into a story it helps the learning be more meaningful and not just science or just a fact. You know, it's a connection then and you put it in context in the context of a story and that works really well for us the other part of your question.

Carri Hutchens: [6:48] Was a multi-part question.

Michael Weeks: [6:50] So as far as what we have going on this summer, we have a really amazing summer program called Summer Adventure. And what that entails this summer is a new traveling exhibit, which is going to be super fun. Anybody who has seen the Wild Kratts TV show with the two Kratts brothers on PBS Kids, this exhibit is a 4,000 square foot exhibit just around the Kratts brothers with challenges, with different habitats that the visitors will learn about, the different animals and the Creature Powers. If you've seen the show, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The theme song is going through my head right now.

Carri Hutchens: [7:25] Me too.

Michael Weeks: [7:26] So that is going to be one of the feature summer exhibits for Summer Adventure, as well as some new additions for our 40th anniversary, such as a new piranha tank, a new Ice Age walkthrough where there's going to be a giant mural of a saber-toothed tiger, a Colombian mammoth to go along with the giant ground sloth that we have, as well as some tactile components with those. And then, of course, bringing back the popular things that everybody loves, like visiting the rainforest, the marine lab, the touch tanks with the shark and the stingrays, as well as the living history farm. And then the popular butterfly encounter.

Carri Hutchens: [8:03] And that's where, yeah.

Michael Weeks: [8:04] That's where we have a greenhouse space with about 400 different butterflies, all native varieties, typically about 10 to 12 different varieties of butterflies and a room full of flowers and they're flying all around you. And unlike a lot of butterfly exhibits, we make it interactive and that we give you when you come in what we call a nectar wand. A nectar wand is a medical Q-tip. So it's a long Q-tip dipped in Gatorade, which is attractive to the butterflies. So they'll come and land on your Q-tip and you get to see them up close. And it's a magical, magical experience.

Carri Hutchens: [8:38] That's amazing. And then so you also have some summer camps, right? So what are you doing for those this summer?

Michael Weeks: [8:43] Yeah, and we do have summer camps. We have about 1,300 campers who come and they come for the week and they range from kindergarten all the way up to high school, our camps do. And those are so popular, they sell out in just a couple of days when they go on sale. And we have all kinds of different topics, Lego robotics, animal detectives. This year, we're doing a new space one in conjunction with the Aldrin Foundation, as in Buzz Aldrin, who went to the moon. And that one's rockets, rovers, and robots. So just a little bit of everything for anybody, really. Whatever you're interested in, we have a summer camp for it.

Carri Hutchens: [9:25] That's great. So I want to take a bit more of a personal look. So is there a fun or interesting story from your work, say a memorable moment or a story that really stuck with you?

Michael Weeks: [9:35] Yeah. So we have a lot of volunteers who come through the mountain. And we also, now that we're celebrating our 40th year, have had the next generation of students who grew up coming to Roper Mountain. So something that was really awesome to see was we were hiring for a position a couple of years ago. And one of the candidates who applied for the position, she was at the South Carolina Aquarium down in Charleston. And part of the interview process, us, we asked them why, you know, why they want to come to Roper Mountain. And she said, well, it's because when I came to Roper Mountain on a field trip and I got to hold a snake there, that's why I went into science. And that's what, it completely changed my life going to Roper Mountain as a kid. And so that's why I majored in marine biology. That's why I got a job at the aquarium. And that's why I want to come make a difference. And so that was huge to see. And it's not the first time to run into somebody in the community who said, I went into, I had somebody on my board who works at Michelin and is an engineer. And he said, I went into engineering and I'm at Michelin because of Roper Mountain. And so to see that impact for the next generation, because.

Michael Weeks: [10:53] Fun to walk around the mountain when we have hundreds of visitors there and to see the engagement and to see the kids having fun and to know that you're impacting them at that moment. And maybe that moment translates further into the summer or further years down the road. But to know that it affected these students to say, that's what I want to do with my life. Because of their time at Roper Mountain to be able to impact their entire life is just is huge. And it speaks to the quality of what our staff does there and the impact that they do.

Carri Hutchens: [11:28] Yeah, I love that. Is that how you got into working for the Science Center as well?

Michael Weeks: [11:35] Well, my story is a little different. My father was a history professor in college. And so I went into college as a journalism major. And in my first journalism class, they said that there weren't going to be newspapers in 10 years. And they weren't exactly wrong. But I kind of turned to what I knew, which was history because I grew up around it. And so my path took me to a couple different living history farm museums before coming to Roper Mountain, because we do have the living history farm at Roper Mountain. And so that's actually what brought me to the science center was the informal education, education outside of the classroom and that through the living history component. So I have a unique resume where I can say I can do a little bit of blacksmithing or historic woodworking or driving draft horses and plowing a field with them. So, but in addition to that, coming to Roper Mountain and being involved in the hard sciences in everything that we do there, and then being blessed to move into different positions, including where I am now.

Carri Hutchens: [12:44] That's great. So I wanna just look and get a little peek behind the scenes of what the process is like of what folks might not be able to see. So is there something your team does really well that you think people probably wouldn't necessarily even notice?

Michael Weeks: [12:58] We do a great job of creating immersive spaces. So we don't just try to present an animal, for example. We will immerse your senses from the moment that you walk on the property and you're walking up to the ticket area. You'll hear music in the background. You'll smell different scents in different areas.

Michael Weeks: [13:22] And then in addition to that, we build out the habitats to be immersive habitats. For example, the rainforest is a greenhouse which literally has the plants growing that you would find in the rainforest, and it's hot and it's humid, and it immerses you in what it's like to be in the rainforest. When you go into the planetarium, the music in the planetarium is completely different than the music you would find in the natural science or the environmental science building. It's all those subtle cues that enable you to be completely immersed in the experience beyond just what you're seeing with your eyes. So I think our staff does a fantastic job of that. Anytime our staff interacts one-on-one with a student or an adult, it's something to behold because, you know, while we have a rainforest and a marine lab and butterflies and all these cool things, it's really and truly the staff who make it come to life. Otherwise, it would just be buildings, cool buildings and cool animals and everything, but the learning wouldn't be there as well. And so our staff really takes those connections, makes them a lot deeper, presents them in ways that are meaningful. If you are four years old or if you're 40 or if you're 84 years old, they can really connect with visitors across the board and make it meaningful and make it exciting as well.

Carri Hutchens: [14:44] That's great. So if someone from the community wants to get involved in the science center, whether they have kids or not, what's the best way to do that?

Michael Weeks: [14:52] Yeah, definitely. So all kinds of information on our website, which is ropermountain.org, ropermountain.org. And we have a volunteer page. So we do have a great group of volunteers where if you want to get involved helping in the garden or being one of the docents who, you know, talks to people when they come or helps hold the animals or helps in animal care. We have a lot of different opportunities for volunteers. We have intern opportunities as well. And then I would be remiss if I didn't talk about our board of directors. So we have a volunteer board called the Roper Mountain Science Center Association. And those are a lot of the leaders in the community from different corporations and different organizations who have a commitment to science, to STEM education, and to learning in general. And so they help connect Roper Mountain to a lot of our corporate partners, help with the fundraising with our annual fundraiser and provide a lot of opportunities for engagement. Yeah. And all those things are on the website, as well as all the information about our different programs where you can come buy a ticket to come to either the Starry Nights or the Summer Adventure that we talked about and all the different things we do are all there on the website. There's a lot of information. Sometimes it can be a little tricky to navigate.

Carri Hutchens: [16:08] Right, right. Is there anything else before we go that you'd like the listeners to know that maybe we haven't talked about yet?

Michael Weeks: [16:15] Yeah, for sure. So we are actually celebrating our 40th anniversary of Roper Mountain this year, which is really exciting. And so we have a running blog with updates as far as the history, because there's a really cool history of Roper Mountain going back to South Carolina's state tricentennial, which celebrated from 1670 to 1970. That was the genesis of Roper Mountain. And it was out of that project that the Science Center emerged and opened in 1985. So we're going to have a year long kind of celebration. We're going to have some throwback shirts. We're going to have a gathering with volunteers and past staff members, as well as kind of a commemorative pin that we're going to roll out. So a lot of fun things around the 40th, as well as our newsletter, of course, Facebook and Instagram, doing regular posts, kind of highlighting some of the different people who have been involved over the years. A lot of the movers and shakers in the early years. And then a lot of the programs, how they have evolved over time. Some people will remember programs like our Second Saturday program that was really popular, the Holiday Lights. And then kind of a look to the future as far as things that are coming down the road for Roper Mountain.

Carri Hutchens: [17:25] Very cool. Great. Well, thank you so much for your time, and I really appreciate you coming here to share this information with us.

Michael Weeks: [17:31] Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Catherine Puckett: Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.