Blinding Them With Science: The Gateway to Youth Learning

2/6/2018

Neil deGrasse Tyson once said, “Science is not a subject you took in school. It’s life. We are wrapped by it, in it, with it.”

That’s a truism that the Gateway Science Museum in Chico, California embraces. Its goal is to engage youth by providing a stimulating experience that promotes the advancement of science literacy and learning.

About the Gateway Science Museum

Small but mighty, the Gateway Science Museum brings in three traveling exhibits a year and offers instructive workshops like coding. The museum endeavors to provide dynamic learning for kids through hands-on exhibits. It additionally hosts talks geared toward adults (though lots of students come, too).

The museum’s affiliation with California State University enhances its energetic and constantly evolving appeal. Docents are from Cal State, and students often help build and enhance the exhibits. For Gateway Science Museum’s recent exhibit, Journey to Africa: Elephants, Cal State’s Elephant Club worked with planners to create especially inviting, interesting, and educational activities associated with the exhibit.

Currently, Gateway Science Museum has some really fascinating exhibits. At Brain: The World Inside Your Head, the museum invites you to “discover the brain’s basic workings–the fact that all brain function, everything we are and do, begins with neurons and synapses, electricity and chemistry.“ Pretty, cool, right? The Delta Grandeur exhibit “celebrates and shares the extraordinary grandeur and diversity of California’s Delta, an endangered ecosystem.”

Museum Fundraising

A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the Gateway Science Museum raises funds to support programming and inspire community youth in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). To that end, it’s hosting a “Try Your Luck” cash raffle with terrific prizes!

There are only 500 $20 tickets for the raffle, for which the first prize is $1,000, the second is $500, and the third is $250; there are also 60 fourth and fifth prizes. Put all of that together and the odds of winning the March 17 drawing are one-in-five! Even better, if all the tickets are sold, the raffle will earn the museum $8,000 after costs.

For every successful raffle, there’s great marketing…and great raffle tickets. Lori Rice, Administrative Coordinator for Gateway, tells us that their raffle promotion includes email blasts to members, staff, faculty, and students, social media postings, and community outreach members who get out there and sell tickets.

We’re super proud that the Gateway Science Museum chose Eventgroove for their tickets! The museum’s devotion and ingenuity in nurturing and sustaining learning about science and technology is essential!