Playing Around In A “Dream Garage”
Love this: Amy Standen of the California public radio station KQED reports on a small nonprofit called the Community Science Workshop Network:
“There are six workshops, almost all in low-income neighborhoods around California. The idea is to be the complete opposite of a big science museum. ‘It’s your own dream garage, in a sense,’ founder Dan Sudran says. ‘Just a bunch of stuff you can play around with, without being nervous that the curator’s gonna have a nervous breakdown. There are no curators.’
One of the workshops is in Greenfield, about 140 miles southeast of San Francisco. It’s a flat, dusty farm town, and mostly Spanish speaking. The workshop occupies exactly one room in the back of the former Greenfield City Hall. Every inch is crammed with stuff: bones, microscopes, power tools, even a turtle and a snake. There’s no curriculum. Nothing to memorize. Just tools to play and experiment with. And a lot of noise.” Read more here.
Doesn’t this sound like so much fun? A dream come true for kids who want to explore and build and try things out without a grown-up getting in the way.