SPRINGTOWN — Springtown Legends Museum has kicked off its new activities for local children created by museum coordinator Amy Hedges. Inspired by conversations with locals and a growing interest in children’s education, Hedges has created hands-on science experiments and storytelling.
“In speaking to members of the community, the mention of children's programs kept being brought up in conjunction with the museum,” Hedges said. “Several of my professional mentors have had great success with bringing a STEM program to their museums and suggested it as a part of the children's programs.
Hedges emphasized the importance of these programs because of their ability to encourage a curious mindset, critical thinking and problem-solving skills among kids. The museum’s STEM curriculum focuses not just on science and technology but on history as well, helping kids to gain knowledge about the world.
“The goal is to use the STEM program to increase the curious nature of children and provide a safe place for them to learn and grow, while encouraging them to learn also about history,” Hedges said.
Looking ahead, Hedges has plans for several exciting experiments, including one that explores kinetic energy through a wave machine, as well as activities designed to teach engineering concepts through building structures. A special series Hedges has planned will cover plant life cycles.
“We will be learning about kinetic energy and make a wave machine and several engineering experiments focused on building structures,” Hedges said. “In several weeks, we will have some back-to-back experiments learning about plant life cycles like growing bean plants and environment changes for those plants.”
In addition to the STEM program, story time remains a key part of the museum’s activities. Although some stories have specific topics covered during experiments, most of the time is spent reading fiction-based historial stories that introduce kids to important moments in history.
“The story time hour occasionally will have a story that is related to a particular topic but for the majority of the story time hours we will be focused on history and fiction-based historical stories so that kids can learn about history,” Hedges said.
On Jan. 17, the museum conducted an experiment focused on the science of snow, explaining how snowflakes are formed and why each one is unique. The experiment highlighted the differences in snowflake patterns.
On Saturday, Jan. 18, story time featured a snow-themed book, “The Snowy Day,” recommended by Andie, the Springtown librarian. Hedges highlighted the book’s cuteness and the similarities to the experiment that took place the day before.
“It was a cute story that was recommended by Andie, the Springtown librarian, with snow in the book,” Hedges said. “I wanted a snow-based story due to our science experiment.”
With both interactive STEM programming and story time hours, the museum is creating a fun learning environment for children in the community. For more information about upcoming story time hours or STEM experiments, go to the Springtown Legends Museum Facebook page for dates and times.