About seven years ago I had a conversation with Jane Werner, the Executive Director for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, where she mentioned that the Children’s Museum hoped to extend its educational programming to the former Carnegie Library, next door to its current building. I kept that tidbit of information in the back of my mind until I was challenged as a Board Member for the Manchester Academic Charter School (MACS) to think about where we could move our middle school students. We had outgrown our home on Liverpool Avenue and needed to find a permanent location. We had engaged an architect to look at building onto the existing site, but I was not pleased with the cost for what we would get. So, I brought up the idea of moving to the Carnegie Library to Larry Berger, the MACS Board member who was in touch with Jane Werner through his work with SLB Radio, housed in the basement of the current Children’s Museum. Larry suggested we ask Jane about the opportunity to move MACS to the Carnegie Library site. We brought up the idea to Vas Scoumis, the CEO for MACS, and that started the conversation for MACS’s involvement with “musemlab”™.

By April 2019 museumlab will become a reality – a learning laboratory where play and education will intersect, where tinkering, building and  making will be part of the educational world. According to the Children’s Museum website: The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is growing with the creation of museumlab™, a place where youth eight and older can work with makers to create everything from furniture to apps, experiment with cutting edge technology in the creation of art, climb 3 stories on a unique sculpture, collaborate on one-of-a-kind art installations and more!

MACS will find its home on the second floor and mezzanine. On the first floor there will be public spaces for organizations and exploration by children. In the basement SLB Radio will have a new digital media studio. The museumlab partners include:

• Manchester Academic Charter School (MACS) Middle School
• The Saturday Light Brigade
• Allies for Children
• Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, IDeATe Network and Master of Arts Management program and their experiential learning initiatives

It’s an exciting opportunity for other schools, non-profits, and out-of-school programs to collaborate. The Children’s Museum has two Learning Scientists on staff who will work with the partners to use the museumlab as a place for research. How can a school take the best practices from a museum and incorporate them into a more traditional approach to learning? How can students and teachers become researchers and investigate ways for greater civic engagement and social responsibility? These are some of the possible questions that museumlab may address.