Izzy (Torie Jackson from WVU Parkersburg), center, poses with visitors during Discovery World on Market’s annual birthday celebration Saturday. Attendees were able to enjoy discounted entrance fees, free cupcakes and pizza and participated in a dance party in the museum’s Ember Theater. Photo by Douglass Huxley

PARKERSBURG – Izzy’s birthday at Discovery World on Market isn’t just a party; it’s the official kickoff for a year of new exhibits and expanded programming designed for visitors of all ages.

“Izzy’s birthday is basically just a launching of whatever’s new,” said Logan Mace, the marketing and exhibit development manager.

During this year’s celebration, the museum revamped the Project Bar in the third-floor Design Studio, teased major new offerings in the Ember Theater on the fourth floor and unveiled a brand-new rotating exhibit space.

“The idea behind it is that periodically throughout the year, right now it’s going to be every six months, we’ll change out what’s in that space, and that’ll keep things fresh for guests and people to come back and see some new things, different activities and just make it exciting for people,” Mace said.

The new exhibit corner will feature regularly changing themes that explore science, technology, engineering, art, math and creativity in fun and engaging ways. The first theme in the new rotating space is sound.

“The space is centered around making sounds with unconventional things, or making music with unconventional things, but also how sound actually works,” Mace said. “So there is the educational bit in there too.”

Jeffery Hay said he’s been coming to Discovery World with his five-year-old daughter Wendy since the museum opened.

“We love coming down,” Hay said.

The pair got to experience the Wall of Sound exhibit that has random objects hung on the wall visitors can strike to produce sound.

“I love music,” Wendy said.

Visitors will also find QR codes throughout the museum connected to the theme allowing them to dig deeper into the science of sound.

“Parents can scan, or somebody can scan, and say they have a smaller child, they can hear the sound, and guess what sound it is and where it comes from,” Mace said.

The QR codes are located both within the sound exhibit itself and scattered around the museum, encouraging families to explore the entire space.

“They’re in the exhibit itself and they’re also scattered around the museum in different places,” Mace said.

He said the next rotating exhibit planned for the space will be math-based, with a focus on making the subject fun and engaging for children and families.

Alongside the rotating exhibit, Mace said the museum has completely revamped the Project Bar in its third-floor Design Studio, introducing new tools and weekly-changing activities.

“Our Project Bar, which is on our third floor Design Studio, has been completely revamped with some new tools and new unique experiences … guests can expect some things to be changing every week,” Mace said. “Things can be rotated in and out of that space as well to keep things nice and exciting.”

While the main rotating exhibit will change every six months, Mace said the Project Bar will see far more frequent updates.

“Not everything will change,” he said. “But the Design Studio Project Bar will see some weekly activities, or just changing activities more frequently than we have in the past… to keep things nice and fresh.”

Planned activities include weekly themed projects guided by staff members with a focus on creativity and sustainability.

“To guide those or help as needed,” Mace said. “We brought in some new tools for that area, too. What they can expect are things that are centered around recycling cardboard as an example.”

One of the standout additions is a kid-friendly cutting tool.

“We have new cardboard tools and things called Chomp Saws, which are a kid-friendly scroll saw, essentially,” Mace said. “It’s pretty cool.”

He said the museum’s Ember Theater is also poised to become one of the most dynamic venues in the region.

“Our Ember Theater, which is on our fourth floor, is going to have some really great programs coming up,” Mace said. “That’s really the space that is probably going to be the most exciting in the near future.”

Mace said the theater is designed to complement rather than compete with other venues in the valley, offering a flexible layout and advanced audiovisual capabilities.

“We can do things that just aren’t possible in other places,” he said.

Mace said the theater can host a wide range of events.

“We can do programs that are either adult only, but have a kid component, where we can offer Izzy’s Kids Club alongside it, or we can do family specific programming of all kinds,” Mace said. “So we’ve had concerts, we’ve had talks. We have people just renting the space in general. We have weddings coming up … we have movies that we’re going to be showing with a brand new projector set up with a 20-foot screen, top-of-the-line sound system.”

One of the theater’s unique strengths is the ability to host “dinner and a show” experiences.

“I think the dinner and a show component is unique — dinner and a movie, having adult programming mixed with child programming in the same building, not same space, is unique,” Mace said, noting the theater is also set up to do performances “in the round,” where audiences can sit 270 to 360-degrees around the stage.

Mace encouraged the community to stay tuned for more announcements.

“Keep your eye out on our social media and our website, just to see what is coming, there’s gonna be some really cool things,” he said.

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com