2011
The Works aims to be an environment where every child –
really where everybody, regardless of age or background – feels welcome,
encouraged and inspired to engineer – that is, to imagine, design, build,
create, explore, try, fail, try again, evaluate, make messes, think outside the
box and discover new things. Marketing
materials, signage and staff proactively welcome and have high expectations for
girls and boys of every ethnic background and economic status.
Target audience: kids
ages 5-12 and their families, teachers and communities: with these priorities: ages 6 to 8,
ages 9 to 12, ages 4 to 5,
teens/adults
Learning at The Works is self initiated, self directed, open
ended, fun and real.
We strive for great exhibits – exhibits that attract and
engage a child and allows this child to discover something important our make
something wonderful. A great exhibit
provokes curiosity and then allows a child to satisfy it. “How does that work?” “Oh, I see!”
“What can I build?” “Come look at
what I made!” With a great exhibit, a
child becomes an engineer, becomes a scientist, becomes an architect for a time. A great exhibit creates the environment, the
context, the tools to allow this to happen.
Great exhibits are also grounded in reality and are doable, durable,
maintainable and affordable.
The lobby, classrooms and exhibit halls are
non-commercial. Exhibits can explore
generic products and topics, but do not highlight or advocate any particular
vendor or manufacturer. Recognition of
donors is unobtrusive and does not include logos.
Exhibits must be varied to avoid museum fatigue. Different exhibits involve different senses,
different learning styles. Some are
quickly understood, some engage the visitor in deep reflection or in depth
building. The topics blend whimsy and
real world applications.
Children are absorbed, excited and delighted by personal
exploration of real things and real challenges.
Exhibits at The Works must convey the spirit, the tools and
the essence of engineering skills and the engineering design process as well as
information about the content and products of engineering and technology.
Topics range over many fields of engineering, both classic
and current.
Alignment with Minnesota state science standards is
considered
It is much more important to maintain the hands-on emphasis
of the exhibit halls than to comprehensively cover each topic or aspect of a
theme. This is a common mistake museums make. While it is certainly important to have
overarching thematic coherence, it is the experience of individual exhibits
that has the greatest impact on visitor learning, motivation and
satisfaction.
Almost all of the exhibits must be truly hands-on, but
occasionally, with good reason, a few evocative displays or demonstrations may
be included.
Note: 5 or 6 years ago we met with a team of exhibit
developers from the Science Museum of Minnesota who gave inspiring, thoughtful
advice, including: stick to our mission and unique potential of truly hands-on
activities because it is a very valuable niche and larger, more formal
institutions (like the SMM) simply cannot pull that off.
May 2010 -- notes
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Philosophy/Goals for The Works exhibits
- The Works aims to be an environment where every child – really where everybody, regardless of age or background – feels welcome, encouraged and inspired to engineer (that is, to imagine, design, build, create, explore, try, fail, try again, evaluate, make messes, think outside the box and discover new things. )
- Learning at The Works is self initiated, self directed and open ended.
- Children are absorbed, excited and delighted by personal exploration of real things and real challenges.
- Exhibits at The Works must convey the spirit, the tools and the essence of engineering skills and the engineering design process.
- Alignment with Minnesota state science standards is considered
- Target audience: kids ages 5-12 and their families, teachers and communities
- Exhibits must be varied to avoid museum fatigue. Different exhibits involve different senses, different learning styles. Some are quickly understood, some engage the visitor in deep reflection or in depth building. The topics blend whimsy and real world applications.
- A great exhibit attracts and engages a child and allows this child to discover something important our make something wonderful. A great exhibit provokes curiosity and then allows a child to satisfy it. “How does that work?” “Oh, I see!” “What can I build?” “Come look at what I made!” With a great exhibit, a child becomes an engineer, becomes a scientist, becomes an architect for a time. A great exhibit creates the environment, the context, the tools to allow this to happen. Great exhibits are also grounded in reality and are doable, durable, maintainable and affordable.
- The ideas for The Works exhibits originated from many sources: from reading about technology, tinkering with machines, watching children play, visiting other museums and talking to engineers and other technical professional. Articulating the concepts is straightforward; much time and imagination goes into finding opportunities for hands-on fun that illuminate each concept.
- What does the visitor walk away with as a result of his/her experience at The Works? We want the answer to be something more than a pleasant afternoon.
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