The National Children’s Museum in Washington, DC, is the only museum in DC dedicated to engaging and inspiring children. Children’s museums allow kids to engage and explore independently, with their guardians only there to help if something goes wrong. Many of the children’s spaces in natural history museums, art museums, science museums, zoos, and aquariums allow kids to explore and engage on their own. However, they are not allowed to go outside the child-specific places without an adult guardian.
Children’s museums provide more chances for children to learn and engage like adults but in a space for them. According to the National Children’s Museum website, the museum combines learning elements found in a science center with children’s museum experiences through what they refer to as STEAM. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts, and math-focused play. In a post-COVID world with a defining decrease in children’s education/development, these spaces are more crucial now than ever. Children’s museums can inspire young girls to pursue careers in these fields later in life.
The National Children’s Museum has several exhibits, all located on the ground floor for children ages 0-12 years old. At first glance, the interactives in the exhibit look like a bunch of games and toys. However, the basketball shoot is an interactive that provides kids the ability to think about and learn more about the principles of physics. On the go-go may look like a massive race track resembling a life-size Hot Wheels, but it engages kids to learn about energy and speed, allowing them to record their data with timers and cameras from start to finish.
Similar to the SparkLab! At the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Tinkerers studio allows kids to design, create, build, and play with their inventions. The Paw Patrol Rescue Training will enable kids to be part of the adventures with the pups of the Paw Patrol in the PAW Patrol Training Academy, which allows them to build structures with Rubble and create flying machines with Skye.
Historically, basketball and Hot Wheels are toys that did not target young girls. In creating interactives similar to basketball and race cars but in a way that allows children to engage in the principles of engineering and physics, young girls can feel welcome in these spaces to engage in play. These are not boy interactives; they are for every child that enters the museum. Regarding the Paw Patrol exhibit, there is some controversy about how sustainable exhibits around current popular culture references are for children’s museums. Especially since children’s content ebbs and flows so quickly as to what is popular and what is not. However, Paw Patrol has been a popular TV show for children for over a decade. And it is a show that focuses on learning through play and targets both girls and boys.
The Physics and Engineering fields are two that continuously have a giant gender gap, with about 86% of men entering the workforce and 13% of women. This number decreased from the 14% of women in these fields in 2020. The National Children’s Museum, like the SparkLab!, Wegman’s Wonderplace, and many of the other children’s programs and activities located at the other museums in DC, is another place that allows young girls to learn through the act of play in age-appropriate and specific interactives meant to educate, engage and inspire the next generation of powerful women.
-Lindsay Guarnieri
Intern, Curatorial
Girl Museum