As Bridgette took off her black cowboy boots, she called the “sand” in Loblolly Park her favorite play activity.

“That’s just for the moment,” her mother, Dawn, clarified.

If museum leaders’ hopes pan out, Bridgette could soon have a few more outdoor options to choose from, beyond the sandbox, weather and animal exhibits her mom said she already cherishes.

But first, a planned $3.9 million fundraising campaign requires a lead $500,000 donation from Durham County.

“Some very potential large donors to this campaign said they would have confidence in the campaign” with Durham County’s support, museum President and CEO Barry Van Deman told the county commissioners Monday.

The museum wants to add an outdoor classroom, upgrade and expand two outdoor exhibits and stay financially viable by increasing interest and income, he said.

“When you don’t do something new over a long period of time, you see a dip in attendance,” Van Deman said.

About 430,000 people a year visit the 84-acre Museum of Life and Science on Murray Avenue, said Julie Rigby, vice president for external relations.

Over the past decade, $22 million has been invested in improvements, with voter-approved bonds in 2000, 2003, and 2007 covering about 59 percent of that funding, Rigby said. The money funded outdoor exhibits “Explore the Wild,” “Catch the Wind,” and the return of the popular “Dinosaur Trail,” among other projects.

In addition, the county gave the museum over the past 10 years a total of $12.3 million for operating costs. That includes the $1.4 million of this fiscal year’s $6.7 million annual operating budget.

Sales-tax revenue

In the early 1990s the city and county both received requests from the Carolina Theatre and the museum for annual funding assistance, according to County Manager Mike Ruffin. The city agreed to cover costs for the Carolina; and the county, the museum.

Ruffin hopes commissioners will support the recent request and said the money could come from the first three months of the quarter-cent education sales tax that voters approved in November.

Officials started collecting the tax in the final three months of the 2011-12 fiscal year, but didn’t designate a specific education-related use. The tax generated $2.9 million in that period, more than the $2.1 million projected, and Ruffin suggests using some of that surplus to meet the museum’s request.

The $3.9 million in public and private donations the museum is seeking would be used to replace and expand its 20-year-old Loblolly Park, which is just outside the museum’s back door, and to upgrade the outdoor feature “Catch the Wind.”

A beloved destination for an army of parents with strollers, Loblolly Park “is at a point with its age, that we have to look at something new,” Van Deman said.

The park currently has structures for children to explore, stations with noisemakers to bang on, and a deluxe sand box with toy bulldozers and dump trucks. It would be replaced with a park and a nature-based play space for toddlers to tweens, according to the museum. A pedestrian tunnel underneath the nearby train tracks would lead to an expanded park area that is now covered with trees.

Upgrading the park would cost an estimated $1.6 million, plus $320,000 for maintenance during the first 10 years.

More hands on

“Catch the Wind” is a half-mile loop that shows how people, animals and plants move with air via exhibits that demonstrate how seeds float, parachute and tumble and how to guide miniature sailboats through the breeze.

Museum officials hope to turn the exhibit into even more of a hands-on learning experience centered on wind, water and rock systems. The exhibit would include a “geo-mountain,” made of boulders from across the state and beyond.

“We could collect specimens on a scale that we couldn’t have indoors and make sort of a layer cake of mountain here with these large specimens from all over North Carolina, from Tennessee, Virginia and beyond,” Van Deman said.

This project would cost an estimated $1.7 million, plus a $300,000 to cover maintenance during the first 10 years.

Rock exhibits would help explain the geology and the physical forces that are part of the earth’s systems, he said. Young children could explore exhibits to learn about the properties of water and older kids could learn about issues surrounding water on a local level and a broader scale.

Rigby said the improvements actually began with a privately funded “Into the Midst” exhibit that provides an interactive exhibit that incorporates information on wind, water and rock.

Commissioners Ellen Reckhow, Phil Cousin and Brenda Howerton all said they support the request. Commissioner Pam Karriker said she would likely support it if money is available. Commissioner Michael Page missed Monday’s meeting.

“I would certainly love to see that move forward, to see the county infuse this campaign with that money,” Cousin said.

On Tuesday Sarah Ball, of Durham, made her way around the museum pushing Marie, 5 months, in a stroller, with Edward, 4, walking beside her.

Ball said she supports public funding of the museum because the annual membership fees are affordable and the facility is the ultimate educational playground.

“I think this is so important to the community,” Ball said. “It’s been a huge thing for us and our family.”