Kids In Charge! To Be Largest Children’s Science Center in the Country

TAMPA, Fla. (March 25, 2004) – MOSI, Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry, broke ground today for Kids In Charge!, a new children's science center on part of its 74-acre campus, west of the IMAX^® Dome Theatre. The building will be 45,000 square feet, with 25,000 square feet devoted to exhibits. Cost is $13 million with $10 million coming from Hillsborough County, and MOSI raising the remaining $3 million through a capital campaign. Scheduled to open in June 2005, it will be the largest children's science center in the country.

“While there are many children's museums in the country, there are very few children's science centers,” explains MOSI President Wit Ostrenko. “Kids In Charge! will emphasize not what to learn but how to learn. It will nurture learning and skill-building through hands-on, minds-on discovery, using science to encourage creative thinking and skill-building in a more focused way than is typically found in children's museums.”

Based on cutting-edge theories about intergenerational play, learning, and skill-building, KIC will span a broad curricular spectrum. Participants will encounter science, but they will also discover how science is connected to everything they do in their lives -- how the skills for "doing science" are the same skills for living or working in any discipline.

According to Dr. Judith Lombana, MOSI’s Vice President of Education, “This approach reflects recent significant changes in the science content guidelines in the National Science Education Standards. They recommend that less emphasis be placed on knowing scientific facts and information, and more on developing the abilities of inquiry.”

Under the leadership of the National Science Foundation (NSF), all institutions have been called upon to work together to ensure that students have access to supportive, excellent undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (STEM). The national call places an emphasis on inquiry, on active learning through working together, and on new uses of technology. NSF believes and affirms that every child can learn and that schools and places like MOSI's KIC can model good practices that increase learning. Future programs at KIC will involve teaching training in the sciences, communication and learning theory, inspiring teachers to bring more of the Kids In Charge! experience into the classroom.

The building itself will house more than 25,000 square feet of exhibition space. In addition, two classrooms, two celebration rooms, and a demonstration area will provide space for special programs, presentations, and events. The Saunders Planetarium and Verizon Challenger Learning Center will be moved to the new Kids In Charge! facility to complement the exhibition base.

The exhibits are focused, in particular, on designing experiences that promote intergenerational exchanges and conversations critical to the learning process. There are three main exhibit areas planned: Activate!, Investigate!, and Kids Create!

Located just past the building entry, Activate! is an impressive space of motion and physical activity. Large-scale exhibits serve as iconic landmarks to help guests orient themselves to this new space. The physical nature of the experiences allow excited kids to jump right into the Kids In Charge! experience (and burn off a little energy while they're at it!).

Investigate! takes the guest in a new direction by introducing more focused, thinking-based experiments that both challenge and build skills of observation, logic, analysis and imagination. The experiment stations in Investigate! invite guests to spend time together to solve puzzles and explore scientific concepts.

Kids Create! is an activity-rich workshop where guests apply knowledge, skill and creativity to the process of "making." Overall, Kids Create! will be a space of creative thinking, celebrating the ingenious spirit of children and giving them tools to express it.

The Busy Box is a centrally-located activity space specifically designed for children five and under -- an age group with very specific skills development and learning needs. Here, these youngest guests and their parents will find a world of exploration and discovery to delight the mind and senses. Activities in The Busy Box will focus on the development of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, balance, coordination, classification, and movement.

Running through the center of Kids In Charge! is Demonstrate!, a ribbon of space devoted to staff-led programs. This flexible, open area crosses all three thematic areas of the exhibition, allowing staff to stage both impromptu and scheduled demonstrations on any topic, making use of the exhibits themselves as props when possible. Because Demonstrate! will be a large, processional-like space, staff will have the opportunity to create a sense of drama, theater and fun through special programs in which kids play lead roles in science investigations.

Future plans include an Outdoor Science Park. For guests, outdoor science parks mean open air, fun, and a relaxed learning environment. Guests enjoy the opportunity to observe, feel, and understand the science that surrounds them every day. The outdoor setting provides an open, flexible venue for activities not well-suited to the indoors. It allows children and adults alike to safely experience science in a very physical way, and it facilitates the educational use of resources like sun, wind and water that are difficult to access from inside a building.

A key difference between Kids In Charge! and other children's museums and science centers is the target audience. Ostrenko explains, “In our research into childhood development, this truth became clear: children do not learn on their own in a vacuum. One of the most cutting-edge theories in learning is the growing understanding of the importance of intergenerational learning. Educators have a growing understanding that the social and learning successes of children depend strongly on parental involvement, and recent research analyses underscore the importance of family interaction. Therefore, the target audience is not just kids but, instead, families, peers, and community.”

Funding for Kids In Charge! is being provided by Hillsborough County ($10 million), with an additional $3 million being raised by MOSI's capital campaign. Anyone wishing to donate to the capital campaign should contact MOSI’s Development Office.

MOSI is the largest science center in the southeastern United States and home of the only IMAX^Ò Dome Theatre in the state of Florida. In all, MOSI offers more than 450 “minds-on” interactive activities. MOSI is located at 4801 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa, opens daily at 9 a.m., is wheelchair accessible, and offers free parking. For more information, visit MOSI’s Web site at www.mosi.org or call (813) 987-6000.

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