A little girl uses a small knife to turn what was a cardboard box into a new creation.
In fact, there are about 20 first and second grade children at Santa Barbara’s Wolf Museum of Exploration and Innovation, better known as MOXI, giving new life to recycled cardboard. They are having fun while learning about engineering at the same time.
MOXI Education Director Ron Skinner says the summer camp is called the MOXI Institute of Cardboard Engineering.
Six year old Sam Martin is finishing up work on his project, and is anxious to test it. It’s a boat made of cardboard, with glue on the seams to help make it watertight.
Skinner says the kids projects range from the practical, to the abstract.
Levi Buckwalter has create a project that’s a little engineering, and a little art. It’s a series of cardboard figurines he wants to sprinkle around the museum for visitors to discover.
The program is an effort to get kids excited about exploring engineering at an early age, something its creators hope they will carry into their futures.
Education is a key element of the museum, which has hosted nearly 10,000 students from nearly 80 schools and organizations during its first year of operation. Different versions of MOXI’s week long cardboard camps run through mid-August, with some aimed at third and fourth graders, and some at fifth and sixth graders.
