Fortis Donates Educational Bike to Rossland Museum
By Contributor
With the educational bicycle, the Rossland Museum learns (and now, can teach) how to conserve energy as well as artifacts.
By Bill Coedy
In the picture above, Libby Martin, president of the Rossland Historical Museum & Archives Association, rides an educational bicycle, donated to the Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre by FortisBC’s PowerSense program. The bike helps riders understand how much energy it takes to power things like LED lights, fans and hairdryers. For example, it takes about one-tenth the effort to light up LED bulbs than to light incandescent bulbs. Martin took turns riding the bike with FortisBC’s Craig Clare, supervisor at the Trail Contact Centre.
The new FortisBC bike is one of many interactive exhibits found in the
Museum. With the recent launch of the renewal project, the Museum hopes to create many more interactive fun exhibits and programs for the community to enjoy. The renewal plan is ambitious, but healthy. The Museum will see an architectural facelift, modernization of building systems and exhibits, and in phase two, the return of the popular mine tour – albeit as an above-ground experience.
The total cost of the transformation is estimated at $3.5 million over many years – with phase I and II accounting for $1 million of the overall costs. Director Joelle Hodgins, the Museum staff and Board of Directors are busy looking for available grant opportunities and planning fundraising
events such as a Charity Golf Tournament, a Silent Art Auction, a Heritage
Gourmet Dinner raffle, an Altitude Entertainment Game Show event, and a
comprehensive donor program. The community will be able to monitor their support and success of these fun events on their website and with the physical fundometer on-site to be unveiled soon.
