ScienceSouth educates children, empowers community

ScienceSouth employees know the way to success is through the empowerment and education of the Pee Dee’s youngest minds, said Dick Powell, executive director.

The goal of ScienceSouth, a not-for-profit institution, is to advance scientific understanding and increase the competitiveness of future generations.

And the institution is very focused on that goal, Powell said.

“Science teaches you a thought process. That thought process often (involves) doing observations, gathering data, making a hypothesis, proving that hypothesis and coming up with a conclusion,” he said. “That’s something you do when you get older. Even if you aren’t in the scientific field, it’s the same thought process and so it’s important for children to learn.”

Helping children learn about science will, in turn, do great things for South Carolina — particularly the Pee Dee — in the future, Powell said.

“South Carolina has a lot to offer in terms of businesses coming down here,” he said. “A good work force and the environment is good for business expansion. Some of those (businesses) are going to require scientific types of jobs ... I think it’s important that we have scientific people.”

The children ScienceSouth serves will grow up, pursue a higher education and, hopefully, will stay in the Pee Dee and work within the area’s industries, Powell said.

The institution also helps children by helping the schools they attend.

“We’ll develop programs for each school year that are aligned with South Carolina’s science standards,” he said. “Schools will then pick from those programs.”

ScienceSouth also aims to help teachers develop more effective ways to teach science.

“We really believe activity-based teaching is the best, especially for science,” Powell said “When kids can handle stuff and do an experiment or make something and understand the scientific concept that is behind that, then they can learn. They retain that, and that will incite them to think about science in the future.”

After doing this for more than four years, ScienceSouth can see its successes, Powell said. There are about 28 school districts within an hour and 30 minutes of the center and ScienceSouth services about 10 of them.

“We’ve seen results,” he said. “If you look at Florence School District 1’s PACT scores for science over the past five years, those have increased. It’s been successful. There’s been a need and there’s been an improvement.”

ScienceSouth is successful because its staff members constantly are coming up with innovative ideas and programs to teach science to children, Powell said. For instance, he said, a program that started in December as a solution for parents doing weekend holiday shopping has ballooned into something wonderful.

“We actually publicized that you could drop your kids off and go Christmas shopping,” he said. “It was really successful. There was 40 to 45 children that were here.”

From that idea came Science Saturday, a program that’s held once a month from 9 a.m. until noon for children ages 5 to 12. Each day has a specific theme, such as weather, ecology and botany, Powell said.

ScienceSouth has plans to expand the program to include engineering and medical science themes, he said.

Being a successful science center for the entire community is one of the most important endeavors for ScienceSouth, Powell said. This is because the community has contributed largely to its success.

“The community has been behind it, we’ve gotten good support from our board and (we’ve had) fundraising within the community,” he said, “and that’s what keeps us going.”

Name: ScienceSouth

Established: The idea of ScienceSouth came about in 2000, but the project gained funding in 2003.

Address: 1511 Freedom Blvd., Florence

Executive director: Dick Powell

Employees: Seven full time, three part-time

Specialty: Science education

Web site: www.sciencesouth.org

Fast Facts

The offices inside the ScienceSouth Pavilion are large shipping containers.

The ScienceSouth Pavilion at Freedom Florence is mobile.

ScienceSouth has two mobile labs. One of the ScienceSouth mobile labs has traveled 20,000 miles.

ScienceSouth is working to develop programs for at-risk and special needs children.

ScienceSouth is run by an 18-member community education board. A second board made up of South Carolina residents assists ScienceSouth in its strategic planning.