News

An exhibit called "How People Make Things" is scheduled to debut at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh in January 2007. Consisting of 20 interactive stations spread over 2,700 square feet, the exhibit will give children a hands-on lesson in how everyday objects are made, says Bill Schlageter, director of marketing for the North Side museum.

The project, funded with $2 million in grants from the National Science Foundation and the Grable Foundation, is based on the segment of the television show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" that included video footage of factory visits. Family Communications Inc., which produced Fred Rogers' beloved show, helped Children's Museum officials develop the exhibit, says Cathy Droz, director of special projects for Family Communications.

Aspects of the exhibit still are being developed. However, children will be able to see, for instance, how a lathe works and will get to make their own crayons.

And to any parents who aren't wild about letting their kids play with a lathe, Schlageter says, "It'll be very supervised and safe. It's not as if it's cabinet-making or anything."

Some of the exhibits -- including the lathe -- were designed by engineering and design students at Carnegie Mellon University. During the last semester, Carnegie Mellon students brought the lathe presentation to the museum for the children to try out, Droz says, when one youngster in the group told his peers, "That's what my father does."

"That was very neat, and it's exactly what we're looking for," Droz says. The exposition should resonate especially well in Pittsburgh, where it will run for about three months. After that, it will embark on a three-year tour to museums across the nation. Droz says she hopes that as it travels, other museums will localize it with exhibits of manufacturing industries prominent in their areas.

Planning how to build the exhibit has proved to be a bit different than the television-set construction Droz is used to, she says.

"When you build a television set, it can fall apart the day after the show shoots," she says. "Nothing we build has to take the complete and total abuse of children playing with it day in and day out."

The National Science Foundation put up $1.5 million for the project. The Grable Foundation then donated $500,000 to cover the museum's matching funds. The museum will augment the exhibit with monthly field trips to local factories.

Joanne Rogers, widow of Fred Rogers, and U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, also are scheduled to attend the event this morning, during which plans for the project will be unveiled.

• Most Read
• Most E-mailed
• Latest News