Healthy Choices Can Be Fun

The Early Childhood Learning Gallery is set up like a city street with different businesses for kids to explore. The Blue Telescope exhibits focus on supporting everyday health goals for children, including nutrition and public safety. Three food & beverage exhibits encourage families to explore a wider variety of choices and food groups, with gentle nutritional guidance from diverse and playful characters, while also learning to recognize words and numbers.
Healthy Plate reflects the USDA’s current MyPlate guidance on healthy eating by encouraging children to build a balanced meal from various food options on a physical plate. Feedback is provided through charming animations displayed on a monitor in front of the guest, synced to the sensors embedded in the plate and food group pieces. The pieces are indexed redundantly through shape, color, and graphics for accessibility.

As a mechanism to promote healthy drink choices, Thirst Buster is an engaging physical and digital experience that works in tandem with the Shopping interactive. Guests are greeted by a child size silhouette that prompts them to select a healthy drink and place it in her hand. A beacon on the drink container triggers a playful animation that guides the guest on the nutritional benefits of the selected drink.

Shopping utilizes the same grocery store items and subtle health cues as Thirst Busters. With an eye on future-proofing the experience, Blue Telescope developed a simple CMS that allows the museum to add, remove, or modify grocery items for seasonality. Young learners use the checkout register to scan groceries, which communicate via embedded sensors with a screen displaying the name and picture of the food item, as well as its price and general nutritional value. Guests can then finalize the transaction as the application totals the amount and allows the child to pay with play money or scan a play card.

Finally, What to Expect introduces children to the people and equipment they might encounter in an emergency situation. In an effort to ease the anxiety of the unknown, this experience humanizes hospital caregivers and emergency personnel. Embedded in a real, converted ambulance, the simple interface of six buttons corresponds with short videos of the respective subjects in their work environments.