Space-themed exhibit opens at Mid-America
Continuing its space theme from the summer, Mid-America Science Museum has a new temporary exhibit that also explores the science behind space travel.
The exhibit, “The Sun, Earth, Universe,” is a traveling exhibit that opens today and will be at the museum until January.
Jim Miller, director of marketing for the museum, described it as being like a sequel to their summer exhibit that focused on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.
It is a “perfect opportunity to continue highlighting space exploration,” he said.
The exhibit has several stations that teach different aspects of space via hands-on activities. While the exhibit officially opens today, visitors to the museum over the past week have had early access to it, including the students in the Science After School program.
Educator Rebecca Mann, who teaches in the Science After School class, said the exhibit was popular with the students. “They love it,” she said.
The students especially liked the station where they got to build a little model of a spacecraft, she said, noting they are holding “competitions to see who can build the best one.”
Mann said the exhibit was executed well because the students “don’t know that they are learning.” After playing with the exhibit, the students start asking more questions in class and responded well to it because of the interactive parts. She said the students seem to prefer a hands-on lesson to just watching a video.
Miller said the exhibits are
unique because of how low tech they are. Only one part of the exhibit requires electricity.
The exhibit is small, located in the hallway behind the front desk of the museum, which Miller said is a place that usually receives little traffic from visitors. It is located outside the Science After School classroom and the birthday party room.
Both Miller and Mann said they liked that the exhibit is bilingual, with each station in both English and Spanish.
The exhibit was created in a collaboration between NASA and the National Informal STEM Education Network. Miller said Mid-America got the exhibit because the museum is a member of the Discovery Network.
The museum has a few other big events planned for later in the year, as well, he said. The 20th annual Taste of the Holidays fundraiser will be held on Nov. 21, and the second annual Dino-Lites kickoff will be Nov. 29. The former, Miller said, is the largest fundraiser the museum has, and the latter is when the dinosaurs on the Dino-Trek are decorated for the holiday season by local business and community organizations.