Museum Lab aims to put new twist on education

fund committee. “That’s what the museum is all about, and now we are carrying [this] to Generation Z.”

In a beam-raising ceremony Friday, officials gave updates on the plans. The first floor will feature Experimentation Lab, Noisy/ Dusty Studio, and Media and Tech studio.

In addition, there will be three core exhibits: MakeLab, TechLab and StudioLab. The Children’s Museum also hopes to transform the former metal library stacks into “The Climber,” which will be three stories tall.

The second floor will host students from the Manchester Academic Charter School, or MACS, a partner of the Museum Lab campaign. Museum Lab will have 140 students in grades 6-8. The students will interact in all spaces of the museum. So far, MACS has raised $2.4 million for the project. MACS CEO Vas Scoumis said the museum has put a modern twist on education.

“Imagine you are in the seventh grade again,” Mr. Scoumis said. “You walk upstairs and your lunchroom looks like a hip coffee shop [and] your library looks like a CSI lab.”

Museum Lab also will benefit researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt’s Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments, or UPCLOSE, will study the impact of Museum Lab through weekly research with MACS students.

“We are going to prioritize the children of our community,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who attended the ceremony.

UPCLOSE hopes to share its findings on child development and education with educators across the nation. Other partner-tenants include The Saturday Light Brigade, Allies for Children, and three Carnegie Mellon University programs: Master of Arts, Entertainment Technology Center and IDeATe

The Children’s Museum hopes to welcome 30,000 to 50,000 visitors when Museum Lab opens next spring. Current seventh-graders at MACS will be the first graduates of Museum Lab.

Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette Jane Werner, executive director of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, addresses a crowd gathered Friday to mark the creation of the Museum Lab into the former Carnegie Library Allegheny next to the Children’s Museum on the North Side. The lab is scheduled to be open to the public in April 2019 in the building, which will also house Manchester Academic Charter School and other organizations.