"Tinkering" and "making" have taken their places next to science exploration and inquiry as the basis for highly engaging design-based activities in science centers. However, these experiences often focus heavily on the building and testing phases of the engineering design process, without integrating explicit math and science content into the scope of activity. And they often lack the social context or content that can make the activity interesting and inviting to a broad museum audience.

The goal of Engineering Studio is to create the next generation of learning environments at SMM, allowing visitors to learn by designing and building solutions to real-world challenges, in real time, using real tools. Visitors will gain experience and confidence in using science and math as they engage in meaningful engineering activities. They will also see engineering as practiced across cultures and in diverse contexts.

This project is supported in part by a contribution from 3M.

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