Educational Focus Areas

Science, Technology, Engineering, ART, Math (STEAM) ,fine and gross motor skills, critical thinking, problem solving, systems

Description

Learn about kinetic and potential energy, friction and gravity as you design your own solutions for your object to reach the goal! Enjoy this open ended, STEAM focused exhibit where children of all developmental stages and ages can engage in play alongside each other. Work as a team to create different mazes again and again for the ball to go through. Challenge your older learners with more intricate designs and races. Incorporating a level of open-endedness into the design allows children to enjoy different interactive experiences each time they visit the museum!

Age Level

2 and above

Adaptations

Smaller area for younger learners with not as many parts, larger area with more parts for older learners. 

PBS Connection

Magnet Trick | The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! (video)

https://wqed.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/magnet-trick/the-cat-in-the-hat-knows-a-lot-about-that/#.XhOhG1VKi70

Playing and testing is really the best thing for finding out just what a magnet can do! In this short video from The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, the Cat sings a fun song about what a magnet can and can't stick to.

Extensions Activities

• Adding different gears and attachments, smaller ones for more fine motor activities
• Adding certain sound effects to the sections of the ball maze to play noises once the ball moves throughout it (drumroll on a snare drum, a chord on a piano, a guitar strumming, etc)
• Kinetic art extension:
  • https://magazine.artland.com/top-ten-kinetic-art-artists-and-pioneers/
  • https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/movement/kinetic-art
  • https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/kinetic-art
  • https://themadmuseum.co.uk/history-of-kinetic-art/

Special thanks to artists, Danny Harper and Gabe Reinhart--- for their work on this exhibit.