LEAD - For Mobile Science Laboratory coordinator Jerry Opbroek, Neutrino Day was bittersweet.

Sweet in that the semitrailer parked outside the Homestake Visitors Center drew kids and adults all morning. They gripped a lever that tested hand strength, peered into microscopes to view a tick up close and personal or pressed fingertips to a wire that read hand temperatures.

The event was also bitter for Opbroek because it was the end of something good.

The state's two mobile science labs - officially called "Science on the Move" and geared toward providing rural school students with access to state-of-the-art science technology and equipment - were not funded by the governor's office this year.

The trucks traveled throughout the state to schools with meager science equipment budgets. Teachers applied to have a lab visit, trained during the summer and assisted the coordinators with the kids boarding the trailer to view and use high-tech equipment. The cost of the trucks was $350,000.

"That's everything," Opbroek said.

He found it ironic that his semi was parked Saturday morning at Homestake. The state is pouring in millions of dollars to develop the underground science and engineering laboratory but will no longer fund the mobile science labs after this weekend.

"It's a tragedy," he said. " … It's been great for students."

The other irony, Opbroek said, is that Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, and Virginia have looked to the South Dakota model as they begin to build their mobile lab programs.

"They're developing theirs at the same time we're dismantling ours," he said.

The South Dakota semis will go to Mitchell Technical Institute, and the equipment will go to Black Hills State University's Center for the Advancement of Math and Science Education.

Both schools will try to develop outreach programs, but no state funding has been earmarked for the effort, he said.

Opbroek, who has coordinated the labs for almost seven years, doesn't want to give up what he loves.

"I'll try to still stay in the schools and do science demos," he said. "I'd like to keep something going, especially in the small schools."

Many of the mobile lab's visitors this weekend were unaware that they were among the last users. Midmorning Saturday, Louise Swanson, 8, climbed into the semitrailer and curled small fingers around the wire built to measure her hand temperature. Julie Dahl of Center for the Advancement of Math and Science Education pointed at the developing animated graph on a computer screen, reaching 33 degrees Celsius.

"Your hands are nice and cool," Dahl said. Swanson grinned before moving on to the next experiment.

The loss of the semis is a loss of opportunity for many students in the state, Opbroek said.

He keeps thinking about the comments he has heard, especially from one second-grade girl as she paused in leaving after spending part of a day in the roving learning center.

"She turned and said, 'This is the best day of my life,'" Opbroek said. "I'll never forget that."

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com