Mobius Discovery Center - Karen Hudson

 

 

 

 

 

            Lenore Romney added $1 for the Zags’ March to the Sweet 16.

 

            John Mailliard paid $1 to vent about the balky credit card system for parking meters downtown.

 

            Bill Simer added $1 to say he bought a parking passport for the meters and that works fine.

 

            Steve Bergman added $1 to celebrate his daughter’s acceptance to Western Washington University.  He said Bellingham is his hometown.

 

            Michelle Fossum added $5 to celebrate her dad’s 80^th birthday and to honor the Zags.

 

          

             Club Treasurer Bill Simer proudly displayed the thermometer-style sign showing members now have donated $9,250 toward the $15,000 goal of annual fund raising.

 

            Nearly $2,000 has been raised in the last week or so, Simer said.

 

            He added, “It’s important that every member donates something to the goal.  We’d really like to see 100% member participation…at whatever level a member is able.”

 

            With Covid issues lingering, the club has not held its annual fund raising events the past two years.

 

       

            The concept of Mobius strips date to Euclidian spatial gear-driving properties, early Roman construction to German math whiz August Mobius in 1858.  Mobius symbolism was included in Spokane’s Expo 74 concepts of a continuous loop twisted around a rectangular shape.  Something about the world going around and around in an add path.

 

            For Karen Hudson, CEO, of the marvelous Mobius Discovery Center, the goals are fun and learning.  Ever energetic, Hudson displayed ample of both at the club’s March 21 luncheon.

 

            And while the Center caters to kids of all ages – who wouldn’t like to work on “energy slime” projects – parents and grandparents can sample “the science of wine and beer.”

 

            Special project days include Spring Days (April 6-10), Earth Day Exploration (April 20), Mommy and Me Day (May4) and Father’s Day Fun (June 8).

 

            Mobius Spokane was founded at 808 W. Main in 2005 by a merger of the Inland Northwest Science and Technology and the Children’s Museum of Spokane.  After some relocations and renaming the Mobius Discovery Center was donated to a 6,000-square-foot part of the old Washington Water Power Building at 331 N. Post.

 

            Hudson, who started with Mobius in 2007 as marketing director, said, “I couldn’t look out a window (in the River Park Square basement); now we have the best view in town, overlooking the Spokane Falls.”

 

            The Covid chaos hit hard, she said.  When 500 to 1,000 a day once attended the fun-science sessions, with the pandemic participation dwindled.  A staff of 22 has been cut to 10 and Hudson said she often “works the front desk and cleans the bathrooms.  But I can’t teach science.”

 

            When the crowds come back, she plans to add another science educator.  That would allow field trips, such as our club once hosted at Holmes Elementary School.  Hudson hopes to raise the staff level to 15, using high school and college students. 

 

            Mobius Discovery Center is open Wednesdays through Sundays.  Mondays, she said, allows repairing “the stuff that got broken over the weekend.”  Tuesdays allow field trips, but high gas prices have curtailed those activities.

 

            Hudson said Mobius uses “STEAM” as a motto, adding “Arts” to the common STEM usage of science and technology.

 

            Somehow that needs to include “FUN!!” too, because that is a major part of the concept. 

 

Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink