BENTONVILLE -- The energy at the public library was high but focused as more than 200 children and their parents participated in activities presented by Amazeum and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science Thursday.
The Perot Museum is in Dallas. It partnered with Amazeum to share its Planetarium and exhibit its Fire and Ice show at various locations in Northwest Arkansas this week.
Amazeum Events
Amazeum will hold several events throughout the summer. To see a schedule, visit www.amazeum.org/eve…
Officials from both museums visited The Jones Center in Springdale, Eastside Elementary School in Rogers and First Presbyterian Church in Bentonville. The Bentonville Public Library concluded the tour Thursday.
The digital planetarium program is educator-driven rather than a movie being projected, said Hannah Moots, programs educator at Perot Museum.
Presenters ask the audience before going in what they're most interest in, and then the show is tailored to the audience interest, she said.
The Fire and Ice show explores how material changes when exposed to extreme heat or cold, Moots said.
The Perot Museum outreach program travels in about a two-hour radius of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
"This is helping us test what a longer distance outreach would be like," Moots said. "It's been really cool."
The Perot Museum's visit to Northwest Arkansas is a great way to help people get a glimpse of what Amazeum is going to be like, said Mindy Porter, Amazeum education director.
It was also an opportunity for Amazeum staff to better understand the communities it will serve and allowed it to try out different activities, she added.
The library was the only location where Amazeum set up other hands-on activity stations in addition to Perot Museum's two science experiences.
Elias Eriksson, 7, diligently rolled newspaper sheets then taped them together in the Walmart Community Room.
There was a book about bridges opened to his left as he and his sister, Emelia, 9, worked to build a bridge that would be strong enough for plastic toy cars to pass over it. Their bridge was strong enough for not only one, but six cars to be on it a the same time.
The newspaper bridge challenge was one of nine activities at Thursday's event.
The siblings spent 30 minutes on the one activity. It took four tries to build a working bridge, said Candace Eriksson, their mom.
The key was rolling the newspaper instead of bending it, Emelia said.
"If it bends, it's less strong," she said.
Elias used tape to stick the rolls together so they wouldn't spread apart, he said.
Other activities included packing peanut sculptures, keva planks to build structures, a sewing station with burlap and yarn and a zoetrope where kids could create their own animation.
Siblings Jaxon, 6, and Skyla Whitten, 5, said they enjoyed the zoetrope because it was like a "spinning movie" as Jaxon described.
A zoetrope is a cylinder with slits around it. Kids could draw pictures in different frames on a long piece of paper. When the paper was put in the zoetrope and the zoetrope was spun, it gave the illusion that the drawings were in motion.
Susan Whitten, their mom, said she's excited about Amazeum being built in Bentonville. Jaxon is an inventor at home, she said.
"This is right up his alley," she said. "I'm very excited. I can't wait until it's open."
NW News on 06/13/2014