"This exhibit is going to be called Learning, Caring and Healing, which is all about what hospitals do, and it's what we want to teach our children," said Amelia Blake of Explore and More. "We are hoping that through these experiences that kids become more familiar with what might have to happen to them if they do ever have to be visiting a hospital, but also experiences in things like STEM careers and new terms and technology at a very young age."
Explore and More CEO, Michelle Urbanczyk, says it's important for people, children especially, to be active in their approach to learning, and this exhibit will provide that opportunity.
"We believe in hands-on learning," she said. "Most people are visual learners, they're tactile, they want to do hands-on. So for children, and even adults alike, we want to touch, we want to see. As soon as you see a sign that says 'Do not touch,' the first thing you want to do is touch it, so innately, we want to play, we want to touch, hold and see."
Blake described some of the neat, interactive activities that will be there for the children.
"In our hospital space itself, we actually have a child-sized x-ray machine, an MRI machine, and kids can learn these words and also use their play patients to be able to have those experiences, so if they ever do end up in the hospital, they're caregiver can say to them, 'Remember at Explore and More when you had to put your teddy bear in the MRI? That's what's going to happen today,'" said Blake. "We also have real models of the human body, so kids can look at them an understand what's happening in their body and also what a doctor might show them, if something is wrong with them, to identify where they're hurting."
When asked when the museum is going to officially be opened to the public, Urbanczyk couldn't provide an exact date other than sometime in spring.
"Believe me, I'm losing an awful lot of sleep trying to get to the earliest spring date I can possibly do," she said.