Impressed.
Just like sweet. Heartwarming.Like a little child learning about science, art, and technology STEAM around the square The event will be held in and around Newark’s Harriet Tubman Square Park on Saturday, May 11th from noon to 4 p.m.
But it can also be touched, as in “laying hands on everything.”
That’s what this day of family fun, organized by Audible in collaboration with the Newark Museum, Newark Public Library, and Newark City Parks Foundation, is all about.
“This is all practical,” says Tamara Remedios, director of community revitalization for audiobook company Audible, a Newark corporate citizen since 2007.
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“I’m building circuits, making Jello slime, and painting,” she said. “It’s all about the activity. It’s about touching and feeling and stimulating the imagination.”
finger exercises
At various locations within the park and at nearby libraries and museums, children can touch fossils, build circuits, grow crystals, blow glass, make mugs, and observe local plants and creatures. You can do it. You will also have the opportunity to create spin art and record your selections from the Newark Public Library’s banned books. “I don’t think it’s edgy,” Remedios said.
All of it is related to the STEAM (formerly STEM) curriculum (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics). With school budgets the way they are, everything is becoming more difficult. Remedios said Saturday’s event is the first of many that Audible plans to host.
“This is an investment in the future,” she said. “We are planting seeds today. These kids, they are our future technicians, artists, sound engineers.”
Hands-on learning is standard procedure today as a means of teaching science. Located on each floor of the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. Actually, there is an attraction in Philadelphia called “Please Touch Museum.”
But this was an entirely new idea when Charles R. Richards revolutionized the field in 1925 with his seminal book The Museum of Industry.
Until then, science museums were filled with rocks and fossils in glass cases. There is nothing to stimulate the child’s imagination.And there was nothing to show for it process of science. There was nothing to indicate how things should work.
machine age
Richards worried that technology was leaving people behind, especially children. He said the machine age had made people ignorant about their world and where the products of everyday life came from.
“In the Far East, and especially in India,” he writes, “the production processes that underlie everyday life are revealed to all passersby.” “In the open booths of the bazaar, you can see brass and copper metal workers shaping pots and pans, tailors making clothes, and jewelers and silversmiths in small forges.”
In America, on the other hand, “the production processes that form the basis of today’s civilization are hidden behind factory walls… little is known about these operations by growing boys and girls.”
What is needed, he argued, is a dynamic new museum that explains to the public the nature of mechanized society. And explain it by letting them do it – by showing them science in action.
Educators heeded the call.
One of the first such museums in this country was the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which opened a new headquarters in 1934. Here, children could press buttons, turn cranks, and conduct their own “experiments.” They were dazzled by the prospect. So did many adults.
Everyone can enjoy it
On February 11, 1934, the Philadelphia Examiner asked, “Does the mere sight of a ‘No Trespassing’ sign stir up rebellious feelings in you?” “Brother, what you need is a journey into the world of science and technology. The museum is housed in the huge white Franklin Institute Memorial.”
According to the reporter, there are “complicated and expensive gadgets that perform creepy and exciting tricks with the push of a button.” He was completely fascinated. “This is a circus, this museum,” he said. “And it will cure your ‘don’t touch’ blues.”
Since then, the Science Museum has become an interactive museum.
It’s not just because children learn best that way. Because kids are kids. Please do not touch anything.
“You don’t get that excitement unless you touch and feel it,” Audible’s Remedios said. “Touch and feel makes a huge difference for children.”
go…
STEAM Around the Square, Saturday, May 11th, noon to 4pm, Harriet Tubman Square Park, 501-551 Broad Street Newark. steamaroundthesquare.splashthat.com
