Kids (and kids at heart) can use their imagination to design, create and play in the all new “Build It” exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center.
The open-space exhibit features many creation stations where visitors can participate in fun building challenges including making a bridge, a race car or a Mona Lisa recreation using LEGO bricks.
“It’s a celebration of engineering and creativity and that’s really what we wanted people feel when they first came in,” says Emalee Schechter, exhibit developer at the Great Lakes Science Center. “The exhibit is very colorful, the furniture is inviting, all of the stuff in the background looks exciting. We really wanted people to come in and just start building so, we created multiple opportunities and ways for people to come in and build and just kind of exercise their own creativity.”
Visitors are introduced to some STEM concepts like special reasoning and can work on their problem solving through play.
“We have some building challenges that involve not looking at the bricks at all,” Schechter says. “What can you make just by using your sense of spatial reasoning? It feels like a square, is it a square? What can you make out of that square? Can you make a house with it? How do you stack bricks together to make a shape that you didn’t start with? So, there’s a little bit of science behind why Legos are a really great toy, and great use for STEM education.”
The Great Lakes Science Center partnered with an organization called Cleveland Builds, a union construction readiness program, to build a custom playhouse and robotics table for the exhibit.
Some other features of the exhibit include a soft block area for tots, an LED wall and a bricked-based version of I Spy.
Guests can also admire all of the LEGO displays that were built for the exhibit by in-house staff at the Great Lakes Science Center.
“Our our accountant built the Formula One race car and some people from our education staff made the dogs and the cat. And it was just a really great collaboration across departments. It was really fun for us to make,” she says.
The exhibit runs through April 15, 2024 and is included with general admission.