Mystetsky Arsenal is launching a unique educational project for children and teenagers – a laboratory of inventors, SPARK!LAB. The exhibit will grant an opportunity to children and teenagers to become the participants of the exiting innovation program, created jointly by the Lemelsons Center of the Smithsonian Institution (USA), US Embassy to Ukraine, and the Mystetsky Arsenal Charity Foundation. SPARK!LAB is an interactive space which is supposed to inspire the children to create: it has been one of the most successful projects of the American History Museum, and also an example of educational program being actively realized in all artistic and cultural institutions of the US.
The laboratory of inventors combines art and technologies in one program. It helps children to learn, explore, and study the surrounding world and create their own works. The organizers of the exhibit hope that this project will help encourage children to be creative and inventive; it will also spread information on innovations and inventions in Ukraine and the world, as well as bring to the authorities and public the idea of how important is the idea of innovations in modern life. The first weeks of work of the innovative project will be dedicated to the topics “Science and Technology,” “Ecology and Environment,” “Sounds and Music,” “Visual Arts,” first, second, third, and fourth weeks respectively. The target audience is children aged 3 to 12, families, and groups of children. The admission is free (Monday to Sunday).
COMMENTARY
Olha VIIERU, head of the Mystetsky Arsenal Charity Foundation:
“We have created this social project for children and invited to the opening part the guests who can influence the situation with education in Ukraine and development of children’s creativity. The project has been operating for 12 years in the US, where it was created, and currently it is a model educational program in this country. We have essentially supplemented it: developed a broad educational program for four thematic weeks. Each of these weeks will offer daily master classes, various kinds of activities, quizzes, and all day long the children will remain in the whirl of the life of invention and creation. We believe that applying the best world experience will give an opportunity to stimulate the development of educational programs in the museum institutions of Ukraine. For it is no secret that currently this activity is developed really poorly in Ukraine. During our visit to the US we visited nearly 30 museums and saw what great attention is attached to educational programs there. The approach to every spark of a child’s talent is very careful and thrifty in this country. I mean every gifted child is granted all chances to develop his/her talent. This project as well is called to bring the children away from the Internet and television, and encourage them to work with their hands, to invent and realize their ideas. We want to bring the children back to the sphere where they can find their calling. In all accounts, there will be plenty of children. Teachers and headmasters are calling us with a purpose to bring children on excursions. If there will be too many visitors, we will be assisted by volunteers (over 120 persons), who are going to work in the halls of Mystetsky Arsenal.”
