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Kauffman Foundation Gift Launches Unique Educational Experience
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| Two of the 15 Voyage Exhibition stanchions in Kansas City. |
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Oct. 10, 2008) — Kansas City is now home to the second Voyage Exhibition in the world, thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Voyage is a one to 10-billion scale model Solar System that stretches one mile between the Sun, positioned at 13th and Baltimore, and Explorers (the last stanchion), located in front of Union Station.
The Voyage Exhibition, a $500,000 gift from the Kauffman Foundation, is designed to provide the Kansas City community with an understanding of the Earth's place in the Solar System and the Sun's place among the stars, through an educational experience that fuses sculpture and science.
"Bringing this special gift to Kansas City will increase unique education opportunities in mathematics, engineering, technology and science," said Dennis Cheek, vice president of Education for the Kauffman Foundation. "These subjects are at the core of future innovations, and we hope Voyage will teach and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs."
Created by Jeff Goldstein, Ph.D., center director for the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, Voyage originally opened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2001. Kansas City's exhibition contains two new stanchions and updated images and text from the original Voyage.
Celebrating Voyage's official opening in Kansas City, Science City will offer family fun workshops at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008, in the new Engineerium Discovery area. Tickets can be purchased at Union Station on Level B. The workshop will focus on learning about our Solar System and the adventure of sending a robot to explore the planets.
Compelling, full-color storyboards and interpretive materials accompany the stanchion markers in the Solar System replica. Voyage is 2,000 ft. from end to end and contains 15 aluminum stanchions, each 8.5-ft. high, locating the Sun and eight planets, two dwarf planets (Pluto and Eris), and Explorers and three smaller stanchions that provide entry points to the exhibition and address asteroids and comets.
For more information, please visit www.voyagesolarsystem.org.
