Everyday Ut Prosim: How chemistry professor Amanda Morris serves at Wonder Universe

The cucumber strawberry onion soup that Amanda Morris was enthusiastically eating may not have been her first choice for a meal.

To be honest, it was a little plasticky.

But at Wonder Universe, the nonprofit children’s museum where Morris serves on the programs and exhibits committee, a phalanx of field-tripping kindergartners from Pulaski kept offering her pretend food from the kitchen, bakery, and farm-to-table grocery store — three among 23 permanent exhibits at the museum. Plastic tacos. Wooden cupcakes. A rubber rotisserie chicken. That dubious bowl of soup.

The children depositing food in front of Morris didn't know her or care about her workday identity as chair of Virginia Tech’s Department of Chemistry. They only knew that she was cheerfully playing along — and they were delighted.

They giggled as Morris gamely pantomimed eating whatever appeared on the pint-sized picnic table. “This is the best soup I’ve had today," she said. "I got a burrito too? You guys are really feeding me well.” The more she ate, the more food they offered her.

At last the kids scattered, and Morris tidied away the play food in preparation for the next crew of avid pretend cooks. The activity seemed as futile as shoveling the driveway before the snow stops falling.

Morris didn’t mind. “The whole idea of the museum is learning through the play," she said. "If they didn’t play, they wouldn’t be having fun.”

As the mother of two young children, Morris seems to instinctively understand her role in the work of their play: stoking their imaginations, boosting their social-emotional skill sets, and expanding their knowledge of science, math, reading, and colors. 

Morris first became involved with Wonder Universe in 2016, when she decided to create an exhibit for the museum that would teach kids about photosynthesis. 

A tall artificial tree rises at the back of the 15,000-square-foot museum space, with a button that turns on a light representing the sun. Below its spreading leaves, kids can play a cornhole-like game that Morris built herself to explain how trees require sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to grow.

The exhibit, called "Energy in Motion," is fun, but it also effectively teaches scientific concepts through play. Around 80 percent of children who learned about photosynthesis from the exhibit remembered at least one component of the process two weeks later.

“It’s a lot of fun to see them enjoy it,” said Morris. “But it’s also fun to know that it actually did make a difference.”

Originally, Morris built the exhibit as evidence of the broader impact of her research on photosynthetic chemistry, as required by her proposal for a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award. But the experience left her inspired, and with her own two young daughters in mind, Morris joined the Wonder Universe board in 2019.

Near the end of her second three-year term on the board, Morris was working largely behind the scenes. After a manager departed, she began volunteering a few times a week to help fill the gap.

Weekends are always busier at the museum. Recently, 125 people showed up for STEM Saturday, when Virginia Tech faculty members like Morris share hands-on STEM activities with museum visitors.

"There's no such thing as a bad day when you're at the museum," said Morris. She particularly enjoys developing STEM Saturday experiments to bring into other outreach programs in the community. 

“It gets pretty hectic, but it’s also great to see that many community members come to this place,” said museum staffer Peter Scianna ’24. “It’s a lot of fun helping to educate other people.” 

Demonstrating something like electricity to the Wonder Universe crowd is not quite the same as teaching a science concept to a college student, “but it does help,” Morris acknowledged. “If you can break it down for a four-year-old, I think you can break it down for a college student who's struggling with a specific concept.”

Wonder Universe began as a weekend-only pop-up in Blacksburg’s First & Main shopping center, organized by local mothers who dreamed of a space for children to play. Eventually their vision of a children’s museum that would serve the New River Valley caught fire. The group built out their much larger space in the Uptown Christiansburg mall and opened Wonder Universe in November 2019.

Like many nonprofits, the museum has had to fight for financial stability. Most of its operating budget comes from admission and membership fees, with some support from corporate and nonprofit sponsors like Stateson Homes and Blacksburg Breakfast Lions Club.

Morris is proud that, despite its shoestring budget, Wonder Universe participates in the Museums for All program and offers free admission to families who qualify for benefits like SNAP. As the only participating museum between Lynchburg and Tennessee, Wonder Universe offered $40,000 worth of free admissions last year.

The financial sacrifice is worth it, said Morris. “This is an amazing resource, and it gives them a safe space to come and play with lots of things that they might not otherwise have access to."

Wonder Universe may not yet have a giant walk-through heart like the one at the Franklin Institute, a beloved science museum she enjoyed growing up near Philadelphia.

But there are plans in the works for adding more gross-motor exhibits involving climbing, sliding, and water play — so the museum can serve children older than its current 0-8 demographic.

Currently, students in the College of Architeture, Arts, and Design have partnered with the museum to design a gross-motor exhibit as part of the Students Climate Action Network. With a focus on sustainability, the materials for the final design will primarily be donated and/or locally sourced.

Morris can’t wait to see what happens next. “It’s just the passion to keep it going and to see what it can become, right? It has so much potential.” 

To volunteer with Wonder Universe or to learn more, contact hello@wonderuniverse.org.