Minnesota Children's Museum: Rochester STEM Exhibit Fabrication
Year 1: Arts and Cultural Heritage funding will allow us to identify and plan a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) exhibit experience, design and develop the exhibit, select a fabrication partner, and fabricate the exhibit components between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. The STEM exhibit will be designed to help children practice critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Year 2: Arts and Cultural Heritage funding will allow us to identify and plan a STEM exhibit experience, design and develop the exhibit. From then we will be using additional capital funding to design components, fabricate, and install the exhibit components. The goal is to start the concept and design process January 2021, which will take several months to get a conceptual design. Then between May 2021 and December 31, 2021, fabricate the design and install in the new museum that opened this summer!
$50,000 each year is to develop and fabricate a permanent STEM exhibit for the Minnesota Children’s Museum of Rochester, which must be under a separate grant agreement from the grant agreement used to provide funding to the Minnesota Children’s Museum
- Rochester museum gains experience developing exhibit that aligns with strategic framework
- A design and concept that will be ready to fabricate and install by the end of 2021
After the grant period, the exhibit will be installed and launched, providing hands-on STEM learning to an estimated 43,000 visitors each year.
We did not achieve our original goal of the Smarter Cities exhibit with this grant at this time, as the design is still in an introductory phase. But I believe we were able reach even more educational experiences and provide MULTIPLE exhibits with this funding to provide even more hands-on STEM education and variety. The outcome is the funds helping to fabricate a Light Bright Exhibit, and Air Wall Exhibit, Reaction Time Interactive Exhibit, Magnetic Wall, and Car Run exhibit.
$50,000 each year is to develop and fabricate a permanent STEM exhibit for the Minnesota Children's Museum of Rochester, which must be under a separate grant agreement from the grant agreement used to provide funding to the Minnesota Children's Museum.
- Rochester museum gains experience developing exhibit that aligns with strategic framework
- One fully fabricated STEM exhibit
After the grant period, the exhibit will be installed and launched, providing hands-on STEM learning to an estimated 43,000 visitors each year.
Our H2OH! exhibit is dedicated to exploring and playing with water, building STEM skills like critical thinking, creativity, and innovation in our visitors. The gallery takes aesthetic cues from other new experiences in development and is meant to suggest the Zumbro River flowing out of Rochester into the surrounding blufflands. The exhibit is split into two main areas: the dam and turbine challenge and the open-ended water play area. The dam and turbine area posts challenges to visitors that will help engage older children and adults too. Visitors will attach blocks to the water table to create their own dam and drive water to the turbine. If enough water flows past the turbine then lights turn on in the dam model and other nearby graphics. The experience includes multiple interactive elements – valves and pipes, a water dome, a water wheel, a vortex, and loose props – where visitors can manipulate, observe, and explore the nature of water.
These exhibits outcomes are for children to experience sensory play and recognize water as a clean natural resource and to show how water can turn into electricity.
The Children’s Museum of Rochester became its own entity on July 1, 2020 and thus now has its own Board of Directors: Angie Bowman-Malloy; Melissa Brinkman; Ken Brown; Brooke Carlson; Tim Deutsch; Darcy Elmer; Greg Epsom; Loree Flick; Shelley Henry; Jenny Hosfeld; Laura Kropp; Kari Michaletz; Becky Montpetit; Shruthi Naik; Carla Nelson; Kim Norton; Sankesh Prabhakar; Sean Ryan; Christopher Wendland