It’s No April Fool’s Joke:
Spark and Beakerhead are Joining Forces!
Calgary, Alberta – Two of Calgary’s largest science entertainment and education forces are coming together under one administrative roof later this month in a move designed to inspire more people to engage with science and technology.
Beakerhead Creative Society, the charitable organization that stages engaging science installations and spectacles in Calgary, will move under the auspices of the Calgary Science Centre Society, which operates as TELUS Spark. Both organizations share a mandate to engage the public in science in a way that betters the future.
“Beakerhead will continue to operate as a distinct brand with its own programming while gaining the stability of the year-round science centre operations,” says Mary Anne Moser, President and CEO of Spark. “In return, Beakerhead will be the most original outreach program a science centre could hope for.”
“It’s not quite the same as Disney acquiring Pixar, but that’s the idea!”
In 2013, Moser co-founded Beakerhead along with Jay Ingram, a well-known science writer and broadcaster. She served as Beakerhead’s CEO for its first six years before moving to Spark in 2019. In 2021, with the support of the Spark and Beakerhead Boards of Directors, both organizations explored how they might strengthen each other by leveraging their common mandate to engage broad audiences in creative ways with science and technology.
“We are thrilled to see Beakerhead find a year-round home where it can do what it does best – create the unexpected at the crossroads of art, science and engineering,” says Ross Middleton, Chair of the Beakerhead Board of Directors.
“Spark has been exploring ways to reach all those who have not yet fallen in love with science, and that is what Beakerhead does so well,” says Graeme Harrison, Chair of the Spark Board of Directors. “As we continue to transform the science centre into a global leader, it is important to reach outside the walls of the building.”
Spark is also home to the Creative Kids Museum, which merged with Spark in 2005. The Creative Kids Museum continues to operate today as a dedicated wing of the science centre specializing in science-informed activities designed for baby and toddler brain development.
The combination is expected to be completed by the end of April 2022. Beakerhead’s 2022 fall spectacle is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of September 24.
Media Inquiries
Pamela Todd, Director, Brand and Marketing
About the Calgary Science Centre Society (operating as TELUS Spark Science Centre)
TELUS Spark Science Centre, a registered educational charity, exists to entertain and inspire people of all ages through creative encounters with science, engineering, technology, math, and the arts. With roots that go back to 1967 and the opening of the Calgary Centennial Planetarium, Spark is a leader in science education programming and science communications. It is also home to one of the largest dome theatres in western Canada, five large science galleries, and a 15-acre park including a playground built around the science of the developing brain. Learn more about Spark at www.sparkscience.ca.
About Beakerhead Creative Society
Beakerhead’s mandate is to advance education at the crossroads of art, science and engineering. Through year-round educational programs and an annual September spectacle in Calgary, Canada, Beakerhead engages people from all walks of life in exuberant expressions of human ingenuity. It was created in 2013, and was an immediate large-scale event, attracting tens of thousands in the first year with original and broadly inclusive programming.
Land Acknowledgement
The Calgary Science Centre Society, operating as TELUS Spark Science Centre, is a registered educational charity in Calgary, Canada. Spark thrives on the ancestral lands of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy), and is grateful to these longstanding caretakers of the land who, along with the Tsuut’ina, Îyârhe Nakoda, and Government of Canada, signed Treaty 7 in 1877. Spark acknowledges that Treaty 7 sets out an agreement for reciprocal peace and friendship between self-determined peoples. The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation Region 3.
