North Dakota’s Gateway to Science celebrates new facility with help of donation from Farmers Union Insurance

How is ethanol made? What do veterinarians hear from a sick cow’s digestive system? How are the soils different from North Dakota’s western edge to the Red River Valley?

All questions answered with interactive displays and games for kids at North Dakota’s Gateway to Science in Bismarck. The 43,000 square-foot facility opened in early March in its new location overlooking the Missouri River near Bismarck State College.

Executive Director Beth Demke said the transition has been met with excitement, and that the new facility and additional exhibits has already led to an increase in attendance and memberships.

“People are overwhelmed when they walk in, but in a good way,” she said. “We’ve seen tremendous growth with memberships and with return visitors. We’ve got people that come back more than once a week.”

Farmers Union Insurance donated $100,000 to the new facility, which features a “Growing Science” area that focuses on North Dakota’s agriculture sector. It’s near the “Transforming Energy” area, which focuses on the state’s energy sector.

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Demke said getting agriculture and energy stakeholders on board to fund these areas wasn’t difficult.

“It was easy in that every one of these industries has a vested interest in making sure that children and the general public understand the science behind the work that they do,” she said. “I would say, you tell us the science and we will (create an exhibit) that is handson interactive and exciting. Then, we’ll bring it back to you and ask if we got it right.

“So there are all these layers of nuance that get built into these things. Some of it comes from us in our observations of our own visitors, and some of it comes from subject matter experts, and some from the developer of the exhibit.”

For the “Transforming Energy” exhibit, the center worked specifically with the North Dakota Ethanol Council (NDEC) to build an exhibit that shows kids how an ethanol plant turns corn into fuel. The exhibit involves kids turning handles to start the process. The amount of effort they put in directly relates to how far the automobiles move in the final stage.

“The (NDEC) and the developer would go back and forth coming up with a plan on how to make the science work — it’s about inputs and outputs,” she said. “And we added some more labels and some viewing windows, because kids want to know all of the mechanisms of how this works.”

The energy exhibits include a large pumpjack that educates kids on oil and natural gas, as well as wind and solar exhibits.

In the “Growing Science” area, the farm simulator allows four kids to play a farming game on a large touch screen console, with each of the four spots representing a soil type from a different region in North Dakota. Some crops will do better than others depending on the soil type, and kids have tools to aid their efforts, like a cartoon agronomist.

Additionally, the area features a large beef cow, in which kids can hear the difference between the heart and digestive sounds of a healthy cow vs. a sick cow. There’s also an exhibit on collar technology used on dairy cows to improve data collection.

Each exhibit comes with a well-worded description, but that’s only to provide the basics and get kids started, Demke said.

“We did a bit of throttling back in terms of how much (written) information we feed to

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the average visitor,” Demke said. “They’re not going to sit there for 15 minutes and read something. These are hands-on exhibits. You’ve got to get it out with very little wording, and you’ve got to grab them right away. So there’s a balance there that we’ve tried to achieve.”

History

The brainchild of Dr. Frank Koch — a chemistry teacher at Bismarck State College — the Gateway to Science opened in November 1994 at the Gateway Mall in Bismarck.

In January of 2005, it moved to the High Prairie Arts and Science Complex, which is just north of BSC. It remained there until it opened in its new facility in March.

Demke said Koch’s vision was about having a place where families could experience science together. When it opened, the center was all volunteers, and even the exhibits were built by volunteers,

“He wanted a welcoming place where people would feel that science is for them,” said Demke, who was among the first volunteers. “From that came the idea that we could have this place right in our hometown.”

The City of Bismarck donated the land for the new building, which features more than just science exhibits. There’s a large meeting space upstairs with a scenic view of the Missouri River that is available to rent for occasions.

Additionally, the facility has classrooms and a lab — named after Koch — that allows in-house educators to teach about science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) after school or in the summer camp program. Those educators also go on the road in the Gateway to Science van, driving across the state to take small exhibits into classrooms.

Funding

A big chunk of the facility’s funding came from the North Dakota state legislature, which approved $13.5 million in grant funding during the 2021 session. The center has also been able to rely on corporate donations and sponsorship opportunities.

“We got some generous funding from the legislature, which is awesome, and that helped us more than I can say,” Demke said. “But we also had some corporate funders and private funders — those that see the need.”

Farmers Union Insurance donated to the agricultural area of the gallery, while other companies donated to their respective areas such as energy, health and medicine, weather and transportation.

“These (companies) see the need and the importance of sponsoring (STEM) and wanting to keep our students in our state … and we’re grateful for the support that our stakeholders like Farmers Union have shown, because that’s what got us here,” she said. “We always talk about growing our own. Let’s make sure our kids our well-prepared and that they’re critical thinkers and problem-solvers. It’s all for them.”

In this exhibit, kids can pick up a stethoscope and touch it against the white display to hear what a normal cow’s digestive system and heartbeat sound like. They can then touch it against the circles on the cow to hear what an unhealthy cow might sound like.