ExplorationWorks opens immersive Anywhere Room, adds Grossology exhibit
ExplorationWorks reopened with a projection-filled Anywhere Room and the body-humor exhibit Grossology, adding two hands-on spaces for Helena families.
ExplorationWorks reopened Saturday with the new Anywhere Room and Grossology, two additions that turn a former balcony into a bigger hands-on science destination for Helena families and visitors.
The Anywhere Room uses advanced projection technology on walls and floors to surround people with moving images, without headsets or special equipment. The museum says it is the first room of its kind in the Pacific Northwest for education, and staff have framed it as a state-of-the-art learning experience that can shift from outer space to the Serengeti, then to Santa Monica or anywhere else the projections take children.
Program director Sara O’Reilly said the room lets visitors imagine being on Mars one day and in the rainforest the next. Deputy director Kari Gagner said the added space will allow ExplorationWorks to “serve more families and more kids in the community.” For local parents looking for science experiences that are active rather than passive, the room gives children something they cannot get from a textbook or a screen: the chance to stand inside the lesson and see how a space can be transformed into another world.
The expansion project converted the museum’s former balcony into two new spaces, the Anywhere Room and a Discovery Lab that will support summer camps, after-school programs, field trips and workshops. Work began in summer 2025, and ExplorationWorks had aimed to open the new spaces in early 2026. The overall project was listed at $800,000, and the nonprofit said it was about 5% short of its funding goal in September 2025. Museum leaders have described the expansion as a response to a growing community need for high-quality science programs and exhibits in Helena and Lewis and Clark County.
Alongside the new projection room, ExplorationWorks reopened Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body after closing May 11-15 for exhibit changeout. The summer exhibit, based on Sylvia Branzei’s book and developed with Advanced Exhibits, LLC, leans into slime, smells and the strange mechanics of the human body with interactive pieces including the Vomit Center, Toot Toot, Burp Machine and Urine: The Game. The museum says an animatronic element was built by the same team that worked on animatronics for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios.
Matt Jetty, the exhibits and facilities director, called Grossology one of the best exhibits he has seen at the museum in years. The exhibit is scheduled to run through August, giving downtown Helena a summer draw that combines play with STEM learning in a way families can use right away.
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