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Feedback from teachers who bring their students to SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention consistently results in two main observations:
- SPARK is wonderful at helping students translate book knowledge to real-world experiences.
- SPARK is an underutilized resource in the Bellingham community, and more teachers should take advantage of it.
“The hands-on nature of this field trip appealed to children’s natural desire to hold, touch, and explore through their senses,” one teacher told us recently. “The historical information was great, giving us a perspective on the human penchant for experimentation and invention.”
Abby Russell, the director of programs here at SPARK, has heard this sentiment from many teachers, and she’s pleased to see that the word has been spreading in the Bellingham and Whatcom County education community about SPARK’s value as an educational resource.
SPARK puts science and history into action
“What teachers seem to appreciate most about SPARK,” Russell says, “is the depth to which we go and the way we are able to put science and history into action. Teaching about protons and electrons is important and necessary, and then students come to SPARK is to see what they have learned put to the test in the real world. Everything comes alive and begins to make sense in a bigger context.”
Being able to see the principles of electricity in action — and to observe how great thinkers of the past have turned the theoretical into the practical — helps inspire and ignite curiosity in new ways, she says.
“We are not here to replace science education in the classroom,” she says. “We have the great honor of being able to assist teachers in inspiring their students and showing them that what it takes to be a scientist is curiosity, creativity and the willingness to be wrong and to try again.”
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