By Seth Daniel
Between the interactive television screens and the green screen “weather man” exhibit, one will find an awful lot of learning potential in Charlestown’s e-Inc museum space – a space that is hosting its first exhibit starting next week.
Dr. Ricky Stern, director of e-Inc, said this week that they are putting the finishing touches on the exhibit, which focuses on climate, meteorology and climate change. The exhibit is on loan through July from a museum partner in Chicago. e-Inc took delivery of the exhibit over the Winter Break and have been installing it in the new space every since.
“We’re getting there and it’s very exciting,” said Stern. “We’re going to start welcoming our first classrooms to the exhibit next week.”
The museum exhibit will be open to classrooms in schools served by e-Inc first. The organization does programming in 13 schools in the area, and they will welcome one classroom at a time for grades 3-5, including some Charlestown classrooms.
Already, she said, they have 31 classrooms booked for the first few months.
In March, she said, they plan to open it up to Charlestown families on Saturdays. More information will be available later about that, but she said they are excited to show off the exhibit to neighbors too.
The exhibit consists of several informational panels and many interactive exhibits – including an opportunity to deliver the weather forecast on a television studio setup. There is also a unique piece that shows what will happen to certain animals and their habitats is temperatures were to get warmer, colder, or there was more or less rain.
e-Inc also plans to supplement the exhibit with small science experiments that drive home some of the points made at the exhibit stations.
There is also a weather station outside that will allow students to make scientific weather observations while they are at the museum.
Finally, they will add a gift shop that includes sustainable objects, games, books and science kits.