Information Age Learning Center

PART III, LINE 1A:

“A quick overview of infoage: history was made here for almost 100 years from marconi, to the us navy in wwi, from rca to our checkered history of the kkk, then kings christian college and finally the us army. We are a national historic landmark, one of only 2,600 nationwide, and we are new jersey's wwii living memorial. Our thirty-five acre campus has 12 museums and 8 exhibit rooms encompassing over 50,000 sq ft. We are really new jersey's mini-smithsonian. Before we get to 2024, i just want to mention two great exhibits that came to fruition in late 2023. A "women in defense" exhibit was developed and opened in november 2023 and our african american exhibit was revamped to a more professional level and reopened in october 2023. Now, onto 2024. It has been a great year and we were able to do so much. A fire museum to highlight the huge amount of modern innovation in the fire service that can be linked to military developments is our newest museum. It will open in the summer of 2025. Our infoage space exploration center (isec) received some outstanding artifacts and professional displays from nasa and the private sector that is requiring us to redo our space exploration center. And we planted a "moon tree", the seeds of which made a round trip to the moon in 2022. For several years, the directors of isec have constructed information displays around several dozen artifacts, and also allowed the public to interact with its 60 foot radio antenna and "speak to the moon", a duplication of project diana in 1946 which opened the world of radio astronomy. For several years we have had a relationship with princeton university, whose students have remotely accessed live and recorded data from the dish and whose faculty have helped maintain its operations. With several major artifact acquisitions over the past year, history and education leaders among our one hundred volunteers have been meeting to rethink both the design of the 1600 square foot center and how people from all backgrounds and of all ages can better interact with and learn from its resources. Broadway, the hallway connecting our museums in the h buildings, is now open and usable thanks to the efforts of several of our groups: the military technology museum of nj, the garden state central model railway club, and the vintage computer museum. It cost over $10,000 to complete and has reestablished an all-weather covered walkway between seven of our museums and exhibits. We continue increasing our curb appeal. The marconi cottages and garages and several small buildings have been painted, the wwii fire house was painted, and we installed a dusk to dawn lighted sign at isec to complement the lighted 60' tlm-18 radio astronomy dish. And we are getting a new furnace for the hotel with a $40k grant from the nj historical commission. Our stem education programs really came alive last year thanks to marc natanagara, our education committee chairman. The 2023-2024 student tours rose to 1135 students from 23 schools, a 230% increase from the 2021-2022 baseline. They came not just to look at exhibits but to become involved in a learning experience. This included learning how to solder, basic programming, podcasting, laser cutting and design, and using micro controllers. For the remainder of 2024, 13 schools and over 300 students attended and we opened on thursdays just for school visits!! Our space week was completely revamped for middle school level and the kids and their parents are asking us to do two in 2025. In addition, we hope to develop a computer camp in the future. We also hosted two one-week sessions of camp invention, a hands-on stem experience of open-ended challenges designed to build confidence, spark imagination and create lasting friendships. We had our first speakeasy casino night in april and all attendees had a great time and we made money!! The wall of honor was another success as we honored don clark, gary martin, and steve pizzo, three pioneers in the fields of com”