I was browsing through a document the other day that describes a new shopping mall in Boulder, Colorado called “Twenty Ninth Street.” It’s a new concept for a mall, a sort of “retail district” that features many of the same stores you’d see at upscale shopping malls (and some unique ones), but set in a village-like setting with streets and (gasp) on-street parking. It’s very nice and we DID do some shopping while there.
But, that’s not why I was reading about it. I wanted to know more about another part of the mall that really caught my imagination: the science exhibits. Now that I’ve done a few science exhibits (she said dryly), I tend to notice these things.

This set of outdoor exhibits is scattered throughout the grounds of the mall in a series of science pavilions. Each pavilion has exhibits and artefacts from some of the science research labs located in Boulder. The labs include the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (my old stomping grounds), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA, another of my old stomping grounds), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Space Science Institute (with whom we worked to create a planetarium show about Mars a few years ago).

The whole “Wonder of Science” exhibition is a permanent, on-site installation that gives the people of Boulder a feel for the science being done in their home town. I found it kind of interesting that in one of the mall’s press releases, the senior property manager, Lain Adams explained that the idea behind the exhibition is that most shopping centers have visitor traffic levels that exceed most museums. That idea led to the development of museum-quality exhibits interspersed throughout the shops.

I guess that makes sense in a cool kind of way. Many science museums now feature gift shops, so it’s great that a shopping mall can feature a science museum. I wonder how many other malls will do the same thing?

Speaking of shopping, about this time of year I get requests from family and friends (and more than a few readers) to recommend cool astronomy-related holiday gifts to give. I’ve built The Spacewriter’s Gift Shop to help point you to some good gift ideas. It’s on Amazon.com and if you buy anything from the site, Amazon sends a little money my way, which I use to help maintain my website and pay for hosting. If you know of any other products I should be recommending (and I DO try them out before I recommend them), drop me a line.