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By Madison Mathews
Johnson City Press
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Can an exhibit at a children’s museum be an effective education tool in teaching people about children with special needs?
That was one of the questions a group of six Milligan College master of science in occupational therapy students set out to answer during a recent research project that was conducted at the Hands On! Regional Museum during the “Kids Like You and Me” exhibit, which was on display last fall.
The exhibit, borrowed from the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga, featured a number of activities designed to help kids explore how children with disabilities perform everyday tasks, including wheelchair basketball, blindfolded wall-climbing and using a computer without using one’s hands.
Valerie Waruszewski, one of the students who participated in the research project, said the exhibit was extremely effective in teaching the community about people living with disabilities.
“It was neat when we saw parents learning alongside kids because maybe they hadn’t seen it before either. … It just definitely brings a greater awareness of how everybody’s different and everybody functions differently and everybody lives their life, whether they live with certain adaptations and changes or the things that (we) use,” she said.
As a student, Waruszewski said the exhibit was even beneficial for her as she was able to see assistive technology she hadn’t encountered before, such as a vibrating pillow used by a deaf person to let them know an alarm clock was ringing.
Through the research questionnaire, which was designed for parents and caregivers of children who visited the exhibit, Waruszewski said she was able to learn a lot.
“We discovered that people who had a close relationship with someone with special needs tended to rate the exhibit higher in educational value than someone who didn’t,” she said.
The research gathered by the Milligan students was then compiled and given to the museum. Hands On! executive director Trish Patterson said the research will be used in writing grant proposals for the museum.
Patterson said she was extremely pleased with the outcome of the exhibit, which aligned with the museum’s mission of giving people “through interactive exhibits, programs and experiences, hands-on learning in the arts, sciences and humanities.”
“We really appreciate giving guests of all ages the opportunity to learn something while they’re having a good time in visiting Hands On! and it was particularly pleasing that we gave Milligan College students a significant opportunity to do the research,” she said.
Dr. Christy Isbell, associate professor of occupational therapy at Milligan, was instrumental in bringing the exhibit to Johnson City.
After visiting the museum in Chattanooga several years ago, Isbell met with Patterson to discuss the possibility of bringing “Kids Like You and Me” to Hands On!
“It was not designed to be a traveling exhibit, but she thought like I did that it would be such a wonderful thing to bring to our community,” Isbell said.
The idea paid off, as Patterson said bringing the exhibit back in the future is a possibility.
Isbell said education is an extremely important part of occupational therapy and being able to help bring the exhibit to Johnson City was an exciting venture.
“It was a great opportunity for Milligan students to be able to provide service for the community. They enjoyed being a part of something that they saw that makes a difference I think was really valuable for them. That’s what Milligan is all about,” she said.