Inside the Weis Earth Science Museum in Menasha, October 3, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
MENASHA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Saturday will be the last day the Weis Earth Science Museum will be open in its current form, due to UW-Oshkosh ending operations at the Menasha campus and subsequent deals on its future.
The museum, 1478 Midway Road, will be open noon-4:30 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday.
As part of the deal with Outagamie and Winnebago counties – which owned the Menasha facilities – the Weis’ collection will be transferred to the History Museum at the Castle, despite objections from the Weis itself.
In a social media post this week, the museum asked for the deal to be put on hold.
“Despite its accomplishments, the future of the Weis is in jeopardy as it is in imminent danger of having its assets given away at no cost and without due process to an unrelated local history museum. As a result, Wisconsin will lose an important educational center, along with its invaluable exhibits, while its educational programs will be terminated, and its accomplishments of the last twenty-five years squandered. The 2.5-million-dollar investment in the construction of its building and creation of its exhibits will be abandoned to move the Weis’s assets into a smaller, repurposed, one-hundred-year-old building housing a history museum in Appleton.
This history museum has no geology collections, exhibits, or programs, nor any geology-based professional museum staff. This proposal has been promoted by continuous false or misleading statements about the “need” to move the Weis developed over nine months of meetings closed to the public or anyone with contrary proposals. There is no need to move the Weis; there is no public support for giving the Weis assets away or relocating them to the Appleton location.
It would be most beneficial for the citizens of Wisconsin to keep the Weis at its current location and operating as an independent institution. In following its mission, it has been highly successful as a learning experience for people of all ages and interests over the last 25 years. It has been fiscally sound over this time by generating its own funding without the need for financial support from state or local government agencies. Discussions with the Barlow Planetarium have identified new and expanded interactions, including the potential creation of a new science center on the former UWO Fox Cities campus site. Plans to move the Weis should be tabled until an independent board can determine how future Weis operations can best benefit the entire State of Wisconsin,” the post states.
Earlier this month, the History Museum at the Castle said it will “ensure the Weis’ mission endures and its unique collections are preserved locally.”
“The Weis’ primary exhibition, Walk Through Wisconsin’s Geologic Past, uses infographics and fossils to document Wisconsin’s major geologic ages and tell the state’s mining history. Temporary exhibits, like Animals Through Time which features a Tyrannosaurus rex skull and a dinosaur nest, will also be repurposed for display,” the museum posted on May 14.
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