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Get fully immersed into SPARK
What You'll Experience
SPARK provides a place where visitors can learn about science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM), culture connectedness, and health and well-being in a collaborative, open environment. Our exhibits offer hands-on educational experiences staffed by SPARK's highly-trained team members. Activities are appropriate for learners of all ages. SPARK encourages interaction with the exhibits in a variety of ways. Check out how we incorporate them below.
Play
Play takes many forms, imaginative or dramatic play; rough-and-tumble play; object play; building play; and games. A strategy for learning, play intersects with creativity, well-being, and exploring materials. Spark makes room for play by encouraging young learners to use their imaginations, set challenges, act out stories, make gizmos, and transform spaces.
Inquiry & Experimenting
Inquiry and experimenting starts with question-powered exploration of spaces, ideas, materials, objects leading to doing and action. Testing hunches, exploring cause-and-effect, solving problems, and trying out fresh ideas. Even small experiments inspire new questions. The museum can make room for inquiry and experimentation by creating open-ended experiences, offering a variety of materials, and preparing staff and volunteers to ask open-ended questions.
Materials Exploration
Materials exploration encourages investigation of the material world — its tools, natural objects, raw materials, and building materials—using all their senses. Manipulating materials sparks children’s curiosity, prompts questions about their properties and uses, and engages their natural inventiveness. Spark provides visitors with a wide range of open-ended materials in abundant quantities and interesting contexts.
Conversation
Conversation is the back-and-forth between people as they speak, listen, and gesture, sharing ideas, knowledge, and memories. Spark encourages conversation about the objects in the exhibits, the ideas discussed and the stories told.
STEAM
STEAM is about exploring and understanding the world and how it works; informing life choices; and using the arts to expand cross-disciplinary opportunities. STEAM experiences, embedded in our everyday worlds of food, water, building, creating, and play are explored in local contexts with the arts as entry points and vehicles for discovery.