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E-mail This StoryMuseum officials said the new course will provide families and organizations a place to build teamwork and have fun.
By Danny Gallagher, McKinney Courier-Gazette
The Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary hopes more community members will swing over to their facility by unveiling a new ropes course this weekend.
The Heard Museum will unveil a new ropes course this Saturday that officials hope will not only attract more visitors to their facilities, but also increase community awareness about the Heard’s community involvement and environmental preservation efforts.
The grand opening takes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Heard Museum’s headquarters located on Nature Place in McKinney.
The course features 14 obstacles that require individual and team efforts to complete them. They include a 110 foot climbing wall built within a 200 year old Bur Oak tree, a 40-foot high “team power” pole complete with a swinging trapeze at the end, a low lying trust fall and a 500 foot zip line, according to statements released by the Heard Museum.
Amber Caceres, marketing and communication director for the Heard Museum, said the rope course is unlike anything the museum has provided before to the public.
“This is definitely different from the walking trails,” Caceres said.
The course forces groups to work together to complete the various obstacles thereby instilling or strengthening their sense of teamwork and trust, Caceres said.
“There are different organizations that come out and help them learn to work together as a team and that they have to trust each other on a lot of the elements,” Caceres said. “It strengthens teamwork and some elements are just for individual strength, so it helps them go beyond their fear like the zip line.”
Caceres said the course will be available civic groups, churches and companies throughout the community who are interested in doing something fun to enrich their group or organization.
“We have this ropes course program because we want to provide the community with another program here at the museum,” she said. “This is something else we can offer the community, and the purpose of it is to basically help companies and businesses and even families and individuals or diff organizations like scouting or churches.”
Caceres said the Museum also hopes this course will increase interest in the museum and the sanctuary.
“It helps us with bringing in more revenue,” she said. “We like the community to know what and who we’re working for, what our purpose is and what we do here in McKinney. We want people to come out here.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com.
