‘Can you make sure we come back?’ Inside one final field trip, on the Ontario Science Centre’s last day

In a brightly lit room with monitors, white panels and metal stools, the 11-year-old with the pink clip in her hair went to work.

She entered the names of her classmates into a computer and tested their vitals — their vision with an image of the International Space Station, their radiation levels with a pin on their vests. Green was good. Red was bad.

For a short time there, in the bowels of the Ontario Science Centre, Reinette was the doctor for her class’s imagined expedition to Mars, a simulation of what it would be like to travel to and from the red planet.

The field trip, with 47 other students from Ashton Meadows Public School in Markham, left Reinette wanting to become a doctor more than ever.

“It was really fun and really hands-on,” Reinette said. “There’s so much more than just saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to Mars.’ It takes a lot of technology and stuff, but also what the astronauts do (and) what they need to take into consideration.”

Her experience was one of millions — more than 165,000 Ontario students visited the Science Centre every year and the museum has welcomed 54 million visitors since its doors first opened in 1969.

It was also one of the last. This is the story of one of the final visits to the Ontario Science Centre.

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Reinette’s class had already been learning about space, and the centre’s “expedition” to Mars, the first version of which opened in 1992, fit perfectly with their curriculum. Better yet, it was hands-on.

“All I could think of was, ‘I’ve got to do this from now on. It’s such a great program,’” teacher Marni Sidenberg recalled.

While Sidenberg’s class travelled to Mars, another class from the same school — teacher Emily Leon’s Grade 4 and 5 gifted class — watched “Great Bear Rainforest” at the IMAX dome, a dizzying screen that was the only of its kind in the province. The theatre opened in 1996 and, as of 2021, had screened 65 films to 7.3 million visitors.

The film — telling the story of one of the last intact temperate rainforests in the world, located on British Columbia’s Pacific coast — tied in with Indigenous connections in Leon’s curriculum.

“I remember sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, I’m gonna do this in the fall,’” Leon said. “I was already planning my next trip to the Science Centre by 11 a.m.”

Leon was no stranger to the museum, with its exposed concrete and long escalators connecting six levels that descend into the Don River valley. She has taken a June field trip there for the past three years. As a kid growing up in the Peel region, Leon remembers trips to the Science Centre with her own parents and the hair-raising Van de Graaff generator, a staple of the museum since it opened.

It has welcomed all kinds of people since. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono toured. So did Prince Philip. James Lovell — who flew on two Apollo missions — visited in 1970. In 1988, Sigourney Weaver filmed “Gorillas in The Mist” there.

It became harder to navigate in the past two years, with a pedestrian bridge connecting the entrance to the exhibition halls closed after being deemed unsafe. Instead, a shuttle bus took visitors down into the valley. Still, the winding hallways lined with windows and trees remained.

In the afternoon, the students explored. After seeing a rainforest on the big screen, they experienced it in the museum’s indoor rainforest, a sticky, humid window into another world. Birds chirped and water flowed. Students peered at poison dart frogs and a tortoise.

They roamed through the human edge hall, installed in 2013 with more than 80 exhibits. It was the latest in a long line of installations that taught about the body. The Markham students raced each other on rowing machines and sprinted down a running exhibit. Students watched as a mallet smashed a skull, learning how wearing a helmet minimizes damage to the brain. They were, it should be noted, shocked.

“They’re at that age where they’re starting to feel too cool for school,” Sidenberg said. “You see these little glimpses of just pure childhood wonder.”

For Reinette — who loves biology — one of her favourite parts was the screen that showed how you will look when you’re old.

“It was not looking good for me,” she said. “Tons of wrinkles.”

And, 15 minutes before the class was due back on the bus, they raced to the space gallery. The Science Centre has taught about space since the museum’s inception — in 1969, only two months after Apollo 11 moon rock was displayed at the museum, guarded by a squad of police officers.

Reinette didn’t have time to get a turn on the rocket chair, but she watched as her classmates screamed with joy as it careened out of control.

At the end of the trip, a student asked Leon: “Can you make sure we come back next year?”

Then, Leon loaded her class onto the bus. Looking at her phone, she saw the news: The Science Centre was closing, immediately.

A report had shown some concrete roofing panels were deteriorating and needed to be replaced, precipitating a decision that ignited a storm of criticism from opposition critics at Queen’s Park, the firm that designed the building and residents alike.

Leon said the news came as a blow.

“They’re losing an opportunity for hands-on, high-yield, high-impact science learning ,” Leon said. “At the Science Centre, the kids got to be kids.”

Reinette will be at least 13 by the time the Science Centre reopens at its temporary home. She and her classmates will be in at least Grade 10 when its permanent location opens at Ontario Place.

The truth is, they may never go to a science centre as kids again.