Iron Hill Science Center focuses on natural world

There are “a lot of ologies working” in the new Iron Hill Science Center, according to Maureen Zieber, the center’s managing director. They include geology, biology, ecology, paleontology, ornithology, herpetology and Delaware-ology.

The center, which officially opened at the Archaeology and Heritage Festival in May, is a far cry and a short hop from the museum that opened in the 1960s in Iron Hill School 112-C.

The original museum will continue to tell the stories of “the indigenous populations of this region, the villagers of Iron Hill and mining history, as well as the still-developing story of the schoolhouse itself,” she wrote in an email. In other words, anthropology and archaeology.

The center is at 115 Robert L. Melson Lane, south of Newark. But as www.ironhill-museum.org explains, the address troubles GPS. Visitors are urged to seek Iron Hill Park, and the center is just north of Old Baltimore Pike, 500 feet from the school on a newly graveled “pathway through time.”

The center is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. For $2, you can take a self-guided tour, and Zieber will field any and all questions. The most common:

• Are these taxidermy animals real? Mostly. Charmin, the bear standing at the doorway, definitely is. The ladybugs in the state symbols section are not: these upsized models are easier to appreciate.

• Are they from Delaware? Most lived in Delaware – Zieber found the black rat snake in the school – or were collected by Delawareans.

• Can I touch the animals? No. They’re delicate. They’re often antique. And most were preserved with arsenic. That’s why deep cleanings are done outside by someone wearing hazmat protection.

You can, however, touch selected rock and mineral specimens – to feel a dinosaur’s tracks, a fossilized snakeskin, the pattern of wind preserved in rock and the texture of petrified wood.

Want to touch more stuff? A please-touch wall boasts things like a shell and a hoof, and other stuff may come out on a teaching cart during group programs.

The center ultimately is a modern cabinet of curiosities – what Zieber called “weird and interesting stuff you enjoy sharing with your friends.” The include items related to iron mining (hence the area’s name), the Lenni Lenape (the Native Americans who lived here) and Delaware’s prehistoric sea life (mosasaurs and other odd-looking creatures, but, sorry, no dinosaurs).

“It’s important to remember where we came from and the settlers who developed their lives here,” said Robin Broomall, board vice president of the Delaware Academy of Science, which owns it.

Noting that more items are still to come out for display, Broomall called the center “a display in progress.” Labels are also due in multiple spots, and a tree that offers 15 vignettes of arboreal life lacks its leaves. Research is on about possible projects, like hosting a powwow and rebuilding a wigwam.

Zieber’s Native American heritage offers insight into both; her University of Delaware degrees in history, women’s studies and anthropology strengthen the center in multiple ways.

It’s been more than 10 years since the Delaware Academy of Science, which operates both the center and the museum, decided to develop the center. Construction involved funding from and a deal with the county, which owns the site of the new center. The academy owns 2.5 acres around the school and is leasing 19 acres in the park for the center and for outdoor interpretation of those ologies.

One of the first outdoor enhancements is a pollinator garden, installed by Hodgson Vocational Technical High School students. These native plants support threatened bees, Monarch butterflies and other insect pollinators, and the garden is intended to encourage visitors to repeat the idea at home.

Broomall said the 1,920-square-foot building was originally designed to be three times as big, but the recession and other financial constraints eventually led to a $1 million-plus building, designed for potential expansion.

The old museum is in one of the last of the 90 or so schools built in the 1920s by P.S. du Pont for African American children, and the academy plans to restore it so “that it may serve as an enduring monument to the legacy of the du Pont schools, and as a center for historical research on that era of Delaware’s history” Or as Zierber put it, “as we continue to expand in the future, the schoolhouse will be able to fully interpret its own story that contributed to the rich history of the state.”

When asked for her favorite item, Broomall selected the bear, which gives young and old visitors “a feeling for how big and massive bears are.”