Profile: Museum of Science

In an elementary school in Florida, a shy and reluctant second grader willingly participated for the first time during a science class. In Colorado, a third grader, while on a field trip, asked how he could become an aerospace engineer. When a teacher in Massachusetts decided to wrap up an engineering unit a day early, she encountered a mini-revolt in her classroom—her students insisted on continuing their projects.

Christine Cunningham of Engineering is Elementary (EiE) at the Museum of Science, Boston knows that for many young students, science and engineering can be abstract and complex. As vice president of Research & Educator Resource Development and EiE director, Christine can tell you a dozen more stories like those above. Her enthusiasm for the program is contagious and it shows in the nationwide EiE growth spurt. Student participation grew from 200,000 to 730,000 over the past year.

More important, kids love it. Here’s the scene: a full classroom divided into small groups, and a table full of pipe cleaners, pom-poms, paper cups, erasers and tin foil. During this unit, students learn about a plant that doesn’t have a natural pollinator; then they design hand pollinators using the materials provided.

“One of the most rewarding aspects is watching teachers who tentatively try the new engineering activities become hooked on them,” says Christine. “This is due largely to their students’ responses—once kids engage with engineering lessons, they don’t want to stop!” One teacher saw this momentum in action after a pollination lesson. “I saw that my kids were rubbing their noses in small white flowers at one end of a bush, then running to the other end and rubbing their noses again. When I asked what they were doing, they yelled back to me, ‘We’re being pollinators!’ and I can’t express the excitement I had at that moment.”