Posted on September 6, 2012

Donald W. Reynolds Foundation Awards $3 Million to Science Museum Oklahoma

Science Museum Oklahoma has announced a three-year, $3 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to expand the Oklahoma Museum Network.

The funds will support the network through 2015 and will fund new exhibits, teacher workshops, outreach programs, and an updated mobile museum. Launched in 2007 with $7.2 million in funding from the Reynolds Foundation, OMN is a consortium of museums across the state working to provide high-quality hands-on educational experiences through rotating exhibits, a forty-foot museum on wheels, and collaborations with teachers. To date, the network has engaged more than a hundred thousand schoolchildren — 70 percent of them from underserved schools and counties — in essential science experiences.

In addition to Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, network members include the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum in Seminole, Leonardo's Discovery Warehouse in Enid, and the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton.

"We are pleased with the impact this museum collaborative is having on children in Oklahoma," said Reynolds Foundation president Steve Anderson. "These museums and the traveling 'museum on wheels' have been able to provide many students, particularly in rural Oklahoma, with hands-on science experiences for the first time. The continued funding will allow the Oklahoma Museum Network to reach even more students across the state, develop new exhibits, and provide additional educational opportunities to students and teachers alike."