Editor’s note: Dallas Evans, formerly the lead curator of nature and science at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and most recently community development educator at Purdue University, joined WonderLab Museum of Science, Health, and Technology on March 10 as executive director. Below, the science museum’s founders reminisce on its beginnings as the new executive director takes the helm.
Boasting more than 1.5 million visitors in the past 2 decades, 8,000 square feet of exhibition space, 30 employees, and 80 hands-on exhibits, WonderLab Museum of Science, Health, and Technology grew from humble beginnings into a success story far beyond what retiring executive director Karen Jepson-Innes could ever have imagined.
WonderLab was a homegrown experiment started in 1994 by a group of Bloomington women. Its early members included insect biologist Jepson-Innes, journalist Debra Kent, nuclear physicist Catherine Olmer, early computer whiz Louise Schlesinger, and businesswoman and self-described “jack of all trades” Melinda Seader. Some of them worked full-time jobs; some were “highly educated, but underemployed,” in Schlesinger’s words. Jepson-Innes, a young mother of two at that time, counted herself among the latter group.
Some of the founders of WonderLab at its original location in the Wicks Building on the downtown square in the 1990s. (l-r) Jeanne Gunning, Catherine Olmer, Karen Jepson-Innes, and Louise Schlesinger | Photo courtesy of WonderLab
She and her husband had moved to Bloomington in 1991. On the lookout for a volunteer activity, she first heard of the idea for WonderLab at a meeting. More than 100 people attended, many of whom were “high-powered professionals,” she said. Excited with the prospect of a new science playground for her kids, Jepson-Innes eagerly signed up to volunteer her time, thinking that she could “lick envelopes for fundraisers” or do whatever to help with the cause. As it turned out, many of those high-powered professionals had big jobs and no time to get involved, but stay-at-home moms like Jepson-Innes had more flexibility.
So she and Schlesinger, another young mother, started helping the nascent team of “WonderWomen,” as they would call themselves, to call on volunteers to join their outreach activities. “In the early years, WonderLab was a roadshow,” Seader said. They brought hands-on science experiments to fairgrounds, school gymnasiums, churches, and fall festivals all over south-central Indiana. It was four years of hauling equipment, writing grant requests, marketing, lobbying, developing and staffing events, and training volunteers.
They built “talking chickens,” Jepson-Innes recounted with a chuckle, recalling some of the museum’s early efforts to engage children in science activities. “You take a string and wet it gently so it’s moist,” she explained, “and then you attach it to a turned-over cup” by punching a hole on the bottom of the cup and securing the string via a paper clip. When the kids moved their fingers up and down the string, the string would vibrate and create a pitch; the cup’s size determined the pitch’s wavelength. A small cup meant a shorter wavelength and a higher pitch; a large cup meant a longer wavelength and a lower pitch. A coffee cup sounded just like a chicken; a two-gallon bucket squealed like a pig. The kids would decorate their cups and buckets and take them home to show their parents, a simple yet effective demonstration of vibration and resonance. Olmer, WonderLab’s founding executive director, created many of those roadshow experiments, Jepson-Innes said.
In 1998, WonderLab found its first and temporary home in the Wicks Building on the courthouse square. Its 1,000-square-foot gift store, exhibit space, and offices were separated by a flight of stairs. Colleen Couper, a founding member and current WonderCamp director, mused about the days of hauling office supplies up and down the stairs. They threw birthday parties for kids in the office space downstairs, where two “massive, solid oak tables” were put together in the center for the parties, and everyone’s desks were 5 feet away. WonderLab’s little home was small but mighty, as it gave the women a chance to practice for greater things to come.
WonderLab’s garden includes plants, science exhibits, and a chimney swift tower. | Limestone Post
The turning point for WonderLab came in 2003, when the city of Bloomington, under Mayor John Fernandez’s leadership, sold the organization a plot of land for a nominal price at 308 W. 4th St., its current and permanent home. The plot now houses a 15,000-square-foot building and an adjacent garden filled with flowers, vegetables, herbs, and other plants, as well as science exhibits and a chimney swift tower.
By this time, thousands of volunteers had put in their time to the museum cause. Thousands more would volunteer up until the COVID pandemic. “We had upwards of six or seven hundred people every year, which is phenomenal,” Jepson-Innes said. That equaled 13,000 to 14,000 hours of help a year, she added. The founding members stressed that WonderLab’s success was not the achievement of a single individual or small group, but rather it was the result of a whole community coming together.
In 1999, for instance, former Indiana University football coach Cam Cameron, a WonderLab volunteer, Capital Campaign committee chair, and subsequently a board member, brought star quarterback Antwaan Randle El and other players to the Wicks Building. The players volunteered as guides and talked about the science of sports, such as the physics of putting a good spin on a football.
And a local engineering firm, Technology Service Corp., built and donated WonderSaurus — a dinosaur with an ultrasonic sensor that can measure a visitor’s height if she stands beneath its wide open jaws. Everyone was excited because it was their chance to give their children and “all the children of Bloomington a fabulous gift,” Seader said.
Karen Jepson-Innes, who recently retired as executive director of WonderLab, demonstrates the WonderSaurus, which measures height with an ultrasonic sensor. | Photo by Trung Le
The WonderWomen’s husbands and kids also provided free labor.
Schlesinger’s husband would remind her of how tiring it was to hold up an exhibit named Stuffee and wave its arms at people during the Fourth of July parade, in 100-degree weather, from the back of a red convertible, courtesy of Seader’s automotive business. “The biggest stuffed doll you’ve ever seen,” in Couper’s words. Stuffee had internal organs that resembled those of a human to help kids learn anatomy. “It’s like moving a king-size futon,” she said. For their husbands’ countless hours of volunteer work, the WonderWomen jointly purchased a donor brick at the new museum’s entrance dedicated to the WonderHusbands.
Schlesinger’s son volunteered at the museum throughout his teens and even came back one summer from college to work at WonderCamp. Seader’s daughter, Kate Seader, “quite literally grew up with WonderLab,” Melinda Seader said. Kate is now the museum experience assistant director.
In its early days, having no money was WonderLab’s strength. It had to rely on other people to build things and make things happen. Those people then became the museum’s strongest advocates, its “stealth marketing team,” Jepson-Innes said.
Jepson-Innes became the museum’s executive director in 2017, taking the baton from Olmer.
Just as the people who got involved changed WonderLab, WonderLab also changed those people’s lives.
Samantha Couch, who joined WonderLab as an animal exhibit intern in 2015, welled up with tears as she spoke about what WonderLab has meant to her over the years. “It feels like we are a family,” she said. Every time she felt maxed out in a job, the museum offered her an opportunity to try something new. In 2020, Couch designed the big lizard habitat, which houses “Mooch the Magnificent,” a blue-tongued skink that continues to captivate visitors of all ages. In 2025, when her boss retired, Samantha assumed his position as the exhibits and facilities director. “This place has been my escape and my avenue to make change,” she said. There was a little girl who was terrified of Mooch, Couch recounted. She stood from a distance and watched Couch interact with Mooch for “a good half hour.” When it was time to put Mooch back into the exhibit, the little girl approached with a little pebble in her hand. “Can you give this to Mooch?” she asked. “I want him to remember me.” In that moment, Couch said, “I really feel like … I built a connection between this kid and the natural world that she exists in.”
Samantha Couch, WonderLab’s exhibits and facilities director, with the lizard exhibit she designed. | Photo by Trung Le
Building a children’s museum from the ground up meant solving many problems. When WonderLab first installed its floor-to-ceiling indoor grapevine climber, Jepson-Innes said, the kids climbed up and came down with scratches. “Oh, my gosh! What have we done?” she thought. The culprit was some thousands of S hooks with sharp edges that connect the cables and create the net. Instead of shutting the climber down, museum staff members climbed with the kids and squeezed shut every S hook. They also put a rubberized coating on the hooks to further scratch-proof them.
“We never gave up,” Jepson-Innes said. “I could talk for five years about the problems.” What she wanted the next generation of leaders to know, though, was that creative problem solving and not being deterred by challenges were a common thread embedded in the DNA of WonderLab. Teach kids so that “they can be grownups who are curious. … They ask questions, and they’re okay with solving problems. … Those are really big, important, foundationally important aspects of solving all of our problems and challenges in the world.”
WonderLab visitors watch a “Fireworks in a Jar” demonstration on New Year’s Eve. | Photo courtesy of WonderLab
Jepson-Innes, who retired March 10, sees a bright future for WonderLab. She and the other founding members feel they have done a good job passing the torch to the museum’s next generation of leaders. Olmer, who passed away in 2023, gave her estate to the museum’s endowment, which has significantly strengthened its finances. WonderLab, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, generates 50 percent of its income from earned revenue, including admission, membership, summer camps, space rental, outreach events, and special demonstrations. “Anything we can do to make money,” Jepson-Innes said. The remaining 50 percent comes from donations, fundraisers, grants from corporations and foundations, sponsorships, endowment, and investment income.
Two big ideas for WonderLab include turning its garden into a three-season outdoor museum and putting a third floor on top of its current building. The latter could be a big idea for the next five to ten years.
Though most of them either have retired or are close to retirement, the founding members said they will never stop caring. “It’s kind of like having another child,” Jepson-Innes said. “You see the growing pains, and then you realize that it’s got to do its own thing. It’s time for you to turn, turn away, give up control,” she added. These days, she takes pleasure in watching her grandchildren visit WonderLab and be amazed by its wonders.
“We all have family out of town,” Schlesinger said, “but we WonderWomen also became ‘family,’ as together we dedicated ourselves to WonderLab over the decades.”
Editor’s note: This story has been update to correct some inaccuracies.
