HANDS-ON MUSEUM EXCITES STUDENTS

OLIVE BRANCH, Ill. -- The dinosaur footprints on the floor of the Wham Bam Doodle Hands-On Museum of Natural Science and Resources aren't real, of course, but a scale model of the dinosaur that could have made the prints is part of the museum's "Welcome to Bedrock" exhibit.

This month, students are sculpting dinosaurs, dispelling dinosaur myths and making fossil prints at Egyptian School, home of Southern Illinois' only public school-based museum.

The brainchild of teacher Jackie Meadows, the museum occupies two classrooms overflowing with exhibits that include inanimate objects -- a display of minerals -- and some that are very much alive -- such as the hissing cockroach. Students often show up at the museum half an hour before school starts to get their hands on the displays, Meadows says.

This year they're also learning all about coal, an especially important mineral in Southern Illinois. "I want them to get familiar with the word `bituminous,'" Meadows says.

Another exhibit offers a miniature archaeological dig, and there's a veterinary care center.

The students who use the museum are mostly pre-kindergarteners through fifth-graders. Some seventh-graders are in a museum apprentice program, and the museum has 12th-grade student helpers.

This month, the Bedrock Post Office resides in one corner of the museum. Each hallway in the school has been given a name, and the students are sending letters to each other addressed to the various teachers' rooms.

That's fun and informative but the post office also is a means for students to do research on cities and towns.

The museum has three computers, one of which has an Internet connection.

Remarkably, Wham Bam Doodle has been outfitted with less than $1,000 in funding. Many businesses have responded generously when asked to contribute items.

"The sky's the limit," Meadows says. "When you don't have a bank account you can ask for what you want."

Principal Jim McGowen imagined Meadows had in mind a light bulb and some germinating seeds when she approached him about creating a museum in 1997. "I had no idea," he said.

Now he's a big museum booster. "This is the way science should be taught -- hands-on exploration, invention, letting them achieve what they can achieve," McGowen said.

The museum's mineral display has been built entirely from donated rocks, many of them collected by students. "It sparks everything," Meadows says of the museum. "After the weekend they come in with rocks and turtles.

The featured exhibit changes monthly. Rain forests will be spotlighted in October, Ocean Discovery in November.

The museum also has guest speakers, all of whom receive a museum T-shirt and a $1.25 school lunch for their trouble. Among them have been a paleontologist, an orthodontist, a science professor and a sign language expert.

The next guest speaker will be Jim Mueller, who directs the Carbondale Science Center.

The museum is an extra duty Meadows has assumed. She is an early childhood and special education teacher who works in other teachers' classes.

"This is when I play," Meadows says.

Learning is play in the museum as well. When a class of third-graders there to watch the museum's "Dig that Rex" video is joined by a class of kindergarteners, the volume level rises. "This is active," McGowen says, smiling. "It's not a place to be quiet."

The video came from the Field Museum of Natural Science in Chicago, one of 20 museums Meadows has visited in the past year.

The nearest other science museums are in Carbondale and St. Louis. "Here we are, sitting in the middle of nowhere," Meadows says.

Raynell Young, a kindergarten teacher, said the museum displays reinforce the work she is doing in the classroom.

"The primary grades do a lot of hands-on," she said. And her students are in love with dinosaurs, though they may be more familiar with a place called Jurassic Park than with Bedrock.

"`Jurassic Park' is a big one for them. They want to listen to `Jurassic Park' music at rest time," Young said.

She is trying not to use a trip to the museum as a reward. "I want everybody to do it," she said.

Asked what he likes most about the museum, her student Riley Purdiman answered, "Animals, rocks, books and baby eggs."

He referred to the museum's mock dinosaur eggs.

Pam Arnold's third-grade class hadn't been to the museum previously this year. "It's very exciting (for them)," she said.

She also tries to match her curriculum to the museum's exhibits, having her students learn about different animal groups in preparation for a museum exhibit on animal classifications.

In addition to inviting students to put their hands on its exhibits, the museum has created 10 science kits students can do activities with at home. There also are recess science kits for use during the day.

Meadows says all this is having a good effect on the students.

"They're just blooming."