3 Key Ways To Excite Kids About Your Space Exhibit
Space exploration is an exciting part of modern science, but for many kids, it often takes a back seat to more terrestrial forms of exploration and wonder. If you're putting together a space exhibit, how can you help kids get excited about it? Here are three key ways.
1. Focus on the Senses
Looking at pictures of planets and stars or globes is fun for a moment but the interest wears off fast. Kids often can't connect with things that they can't touch, taste, feel, or smell.
Your exhibit should figure out ways to help kids connect using these senses. Even something as simple as having to walk the relative distance between planetary models can help a child better grasp the vast distances between them. Feeling the heat arriving on the earth from a sun model helps them understand the connection between the two. And the sound of wind rushing through Jupiter's Great Red Spot storm could bring home this static-looking object.
2. Don't Fear Pop Culture
Realistically, pop culture is often inaccurate about things like science, space exploration, astronaut life, or biology. But that doesn't mean you can't use it to promote the real thing. Kids know and are interested in movies, video games, songs, comic books, and television shows. So, look for ways you can use parts of these familiar things to teach something about the real world.
Superman, for instance, was born on a different planet and so has different reactions from humans to things like gravity, sunlight, and geological elements. While the superhero may not be real, you can help kids to understand these very real sciences by seeing how they are affected and how beings on other worlds might be affected.
3. Keep It Moving
Kids have a limited attention span, so your exhibit should constantly keep things lively. Avoid stationary displays whenever possible, replacing them with things that move — or that can be moved by guides.
Start with basic ideas like globes that spin instead of remaining static. Place asteroid models on a wire to move them slowly through a display rather than place them on a stand. Use videos, even on something as simple as a tablet screen. Install dynamic lighting to give the appearance of movement. No matter what your budget, modern designers have many options for creating vibrant, living displays.
Can you implement these simple tips when creating your space exhibit? Even if you can't do it all, any steps you take toward adding sensory features, connecting with kids, and giving them a lively display will help everyone love your exhibit time and time again.
