Begun as an idea in 2019, the recently opened Disease Vector Education Center aspires to educate kids and adults alike about common bugs and the diseases they carry.
The brainchild of Richard Weaver, the mosquito control district’s business manager, the center aspires to be as entertaining as it is informative. The museum design was directly influenced by two similar museums in China. One of the contributing designers was Nancy Lindahl, a set designer who previously worked for Universal Studios on their Halloween Horror Nights attraction.
The first of its kind in the United States, the center has a variety of interactive educational displays including live mosquitos, mosquito larvae eating fish, bees, working microscopes, collections of preserved spiders and beetles and, most excitingly, a life-sized helicopter simulator that shows three different local flights giving visitors the experience of modern mosquito control efforts.
The center will also serve as a mosquito breeding and testing facility where researchers will work to develop ways to combat mosquito populations and the diseases they spread.
