Kohl Children's Museum mobile lab takes education on the road

One final piece snaps into place, and a celebratory buzzer starts ringing.

Sam, a bright young Waukegan girl fresh out of fourth grade, sits back and beams with delight. "Wow, great job!" exclaims Stephanie Bynum, who has been watching her work. "You're a real engineer!"

In little more than an hour, Sam has already advanced to the 96th project in Kohl Children's Museum's "snap circuits" activity.

Snap circuits, an engineering and technology activity, encourages kids to follow provided schematics to create closed circuits that power noisemakers, spin fans, flash lights, and other playful effects.

Access for all children

It's just one of numerous stations that make up the Museum's new Mobile Learning Lab, according to Bynum, the Museum's Vice President of Programs. Underwritten by Wintrust Bank, the lab allows the Museum to bring its brand of playful learning opportunity directly to children in northern Lake County who might not be able to visit the Museum's primary Glenview campus.

"It's so fulfilling to be able to provide all families with the opportunity to learn, play, and exercise their imaginations," adds Bynum.

"Every child has that innate spark of curiosity that just needs to be ignited. In more well-to-do areas, schools are prepared with the most current technology and extracurricular resources like art classes, robotics clubs, and tutors. Other school districts are struggling just to provide functioning facilities and basic needs like up-to-date textbooks and simple classroom supplies.

"Our mobile lab lets us bring activities that give children without high-end resources a bit of equity, to let them experience the same level of inspiration and creativity."

Turning STEM into STEAM

During Summer 2021, the Mobile Learning Lab has been visiting schools, parks, libraries, and other facilities in Zion, Waukegan, Round Lake, and North Chicago, targeting locations where statistics show children more at risk of academic failure due to lack of resources.

Activities - all provided for free - vary each week to encourage repeat visitation. Giant blue Imagination Playground building blocks and snap circuits stimulate engineering learning, while science concepts are introduced through insect observations and experiments with transparent, translucent, and opaque materials.

While programming includes elements of STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math - that dovetail with school curricular requirements, Bynum points out the Museum's spin on learning.

"We offer more than just STEM learning," she explains. "We prefer the term STEAM, incorporating elements of Art and Design into the process."

For example, while exploring the science of soundwaves, children use rubber bands and cardboard to create musical string and percussion instruments and hold jam sessions. Structures built with blocks by children double as theater stages to overlay creative storytelling scenes.

Learning on the Go

The Mobile Learning Lab grew out of the Museum's well-received Pop-Up Museum concept, which transformed unused storefronts and public conference rooms into short-term museum experiences.

Over the last three years, six different pop-ups have welcomed thousands of visitors at no charge. "While we loved providing the pop-up, the mobile lab gives us more flexibility than anchoring in one space for two months at a time," says Bynum, "plus we don't have to be as dependent upon the availability of rent-free large spaces. We can now be much more integrated into smaller spaces that our community partners already have and that their audiences know and trust."

Providing access to learning opportunities is ultimately the focal point of the Mobile Learning Lab.

"The Museum has the know-how of sparking education, and with the support of like-minded supporters like Wintrust, we now have the means of providing that access to high-quality education programs. We want every child to feel included in the right to learn."

The budding engineer Sam would certainly agree. After exhausting all the suggested circuit diagrams, she pauses, then goes off-book, removing and rerouting pieces to create her own self-made designs.

After creating a new closed circuit loop of her own design, she inserts an optional switch element. Her eyes go wide as she discovers she can interrupt and restore power on her creation. Armed with this new knowledge, she begins rebuilding anew.

Now it's Bynum beaming. Mission accomplished.