Exhibit Analysis and Considerations
There are many factors that can influence exhibit decisions and they need to be done with careful consideration to your potential audience. Nothing can be assumed when you are making the choices that will spend the largest portions of your capital budget. For example, you should not assume that every child has access to even the most basic computer system. While it is true that many have video game systems and Internet access at home, in specific areas in Indiana (with significant Amish populations), some visitors may never have even used a computer before. In contrast, for the students who are actively using media technology, the challenge becomes meeting their level of sophistication.

Memorial also carefully considered the emotional situations in which their young visitors would find themselves. Initial exhibit concepts, presented by the designers, set up an area much like a "R&D Lab" for Nike or an astronaut training camp. While this concept would certainly provide a fun and creative atmosphere, which is what they hoped to generate, many members of the Reach and Teach committee voiced concerns about the competitiveness of the environment. One of the facility's aims was give children an equal opportunity to learn about healthy choices and consequences. Therefore, it would have been ill advised to set-up interactive exhibits that would potentially discriminate against heavier, less athletic or handicapped individuals.

After a visit to The Health Center of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Kathy Jackson, a Memorial project consultant noted, "One reason that I think it was so impressive (was) they didn't have hi-tech exhibits...I don't even know that they had a lot of exhibits that relied on electricity or computers but what they had was phenomenal hands-on interactive stuff...[their team] decided first what they wanted to teach and then they went to the designer and said we want to teach this what can we build to get the message across?"

Exhibit construction and development can be very expensive. Often times the most simple items can be deceptively costly to create. When creating 'The Mind Works' Main Brain Theater facade, some committee members questioned the expense of building the eyeballs. The plan was that the pupils of the eyes would actually change colors during the course of a normal visit. The planners needed to understand that safety, electrical and design concerns contributed to making elements of the exhibit floor fairly sophisticated pieces of equipment. However, just because an item is expensive or computer driven, does not mean it will best fulfill your needs. Some museum's have used items as basic as tennis balls, plumber's tubing and lengths of rope to illustrate various body mechanisms. This requires significant creativity and motivation. The ideal situation is to be able to blend all different kinds of experiences for the students' visit.

Planners also reviewed information and gathered experiences by observing other museums. One of the site visit museums featured an extremely popular "sensory deprivation" exhibit. Students entered a "dark crawl" tube and encountered a variety of tactile materials inside. When Memorial began internal evaluations on a similar exhibit a variety of concerns arose which they considered potentially problematic. Due to the exhibit's popularity the line was quite long; some children had adverse reactions to the darkness once inside; it was impossible for adult chaperones to control the tubes internal traffic flow; and, to protect the exhibit and the students, shoes were removed before entering the tube, resulting in confusion when younger children went to retrieve them. Memorial decided not to pursue a similar exhibit because of the issues outlined above. This was not because they felt it did not offer some positive benefits, but because they did not have solutions to the problems they perceived.

The Reach and Teach committee sought to maximize the amount of "real materials"- items like preserved specimens of lungs, brains and actual x-rays. While the fun and excitement of HealthWorks! was vitally important, of equal importance was enabling students access to models, props and "real-life" materials that their schools might not be able to provide. In addition, Memorial did not want to duplicate exhibit items or activities that were available through other museums or facilities within the community. Memorial wanted to present new and exciting exhibit props and avoid children feeling like they see and do the same things during every field trip. According to Jeff Kennedy, "Kids will want to do their favorite things over and over again, and do the things they did not get around to trying before. As children get older and develop, different elements will appeal to them and old favorites will be experienced in new ways."

Another issue that impacted the Reach and Teach committee's decisions was the limited space available in the facility. Memorial had 12,000 square feet which they wanted to use efficiently and maximize its potential. Again, in this space they wanted to include a theater, offices, two classrooms, a resource center, reception area, adequate storage and restroom facilities and an exhibit floor that would be open and dynamic.

JKA's research about what kids do and do not like was presented to the committee in the Concept Plan Report and throughout the review process. In addition, the committee learned about the different types of exhibits and the effects they have on children, this included the following:

Exhibits are Free-Choice Learning Environments

Unlike classes, videos and books, exhibits are non-linear and are presented in a "free-choice" learning environment. Children are free to make their own choices about how to spend their time here. This means that exhibits which are less engaging and less interactive (i.e. rely heavily on text) are bypassed.

Exhibits Can Tap Into Many Modes of Learning

Hands-on exhibits provide an excellent platform for tapping into the variety of ways in which children learn. Exhibits proposed for inclusion engage all the senses, include full body experience and span intellectual (cognitive) and emotional (affective) learning.

Exhibits Provide Opportunities to See the Real Thing

Exhibits which show "the real thing" make strong impressions on children. Whether handling a real bone, comparing healthy and smoke-damaged lung specimens or examining a preserved human heart, seeing the real thing provides a level of knowledge and experience that books and videos or computers cannot.

Exhibits Can Affect Attitudes

Research shows that exhibits have a powerful influence on children's attitudes about a particular subject. The underlying philosophy for the center's exhibits is that highly engaging, hands-on exhibits communicate this message to children: "healthy must really be important for me to know about, because someone built this really great place especially for kids." Getting "health" on children's radar screens as something that is interesting and important is a critical step on shaping a lifelong positive attitude toward health.

One of Memorial's goals was to create fluidity throughout the center. RTAG emphasized the need for this integration to encompass everything including: pre-visit activities, exhibit areas, classrooms, the resource center, and even the post-visit. In addition, while maintaining respect for the physical, emotional and environmental differences of the visitors, exhibits needed to forward the primary educational goal of HealthWorks! Kids' Museum: "To engage children in discovering and embarking upon lifelong journeys of healthy living."

Classroom Analysis and Considerations
In order to achieve HealthWorks!'s mission, "to engage children in discovering and embarking upon lifelong journeys of healthy living," they needed to put a great deal of activity into a small amount of space. While the interactive exhibits of the museum floor would surely touch all the visitors on some level, it might not completely drive the healthy living message home. Early in the planning process research showed that a combination of free-space and structured activity areas yielded the best results. Therefore, Memorial decided to incorporate two classroom spaces in the HealthWorks! floor plan.

What made their approach unique is that while many facilities have some type of classroom or lecture area, not all of them are intrinsically linked to the students' exhibit floor experience. The HealthWorks! classrooms would serve as "home base" for children during their visits; but it is the skillful integration of one-on-one interactive learning on the exhibit floor with the facilitated group learning interactions in the "classroom" that will be likely to achieve new kinds of successes at HealthWorks!.

Memorial wanted to be sure to equip its education staff with the best tools possible. To do this, they reached back to some of the initial lessons that they learned in early focus groups. What do teachers in the community need? What do some schools lack in the way of health education materials? What can we offer students in our classrooms that will enable them to walk away stronger and more knowledgeable? The challenge in the classrooms was to continue the "wow" impact of the exhibit floor while providing a flexible space for the visitor to better process and assimilate all the important information.

Teacher feedback indicated that while information and teaching approaches could be acquired in magazines, at conferences and over the Internet, many schools did not have access to usable interactive models and other 3-dimensional tools. This is particularly true in the lower elementary classrooms where monies for items like age-appropriate anatomical diagrams were simply not available.

By mid-May of 1998 the Reach and Teach committee imagined and proposed classrooms that housed a projection system equipped to handle new technology as it became available, video macro- and micro-scopes, poster friendly wall covering, computer and electrical hook-up availability throughout the room and lots of flat floor space for group activities and large props. Distance learning technology, interactive audience response systems and chroma-key technology were also included among the imagined resources. Displays and props included torso models for older students, Claudia’s Kids models for young visitors, a light-up nervous system, models of eye, ear, jaw, lung, teeth and full and child-size skeletons. Accurate realistic models were vital in light of the fact that preserved specimens of many of these items would be on display on the exhibit floor.

Memorial was extremely deliberate in establishing connectivity between the museum's exhibit floor and its classrooms. Reach and Teach wanted to be sure they were choosing elements that were interchangeable, flexible, generic and adaptable to all potential audiences. The classroom itself was being built in this manner, leaving room for its use by adult classes from other components of Leighton HealthPlex and community organizations in the evening hours.

Memorial gathered information from other children's museums and health centers regarding the use of props in their classroom sessions. Some, like Byrnes Health Education Center in York, Pennsylvania, used some low cost and readily available items in presentations. These included: tennis balls that could be squeezed to illustrate the force of a heart pumping; oyster crackers that the students place on their tongues to show how saliva breaks them down; and, pieces of PVC pipe filled with clay to illustrate the affects of plaque on circulatory systems. Other items, like a 911/Anger Display and Game Show Buzzer Stands were available from specialized design/display companies, at sometimes exorbitant costs.

Another way of equipping the audience with information and material about healthy choices/ healthy consequences was with a planned on-site resource center. Memorial's planning team began gathering information on Longe Life Libraries, located just outside of Chicago. Founded in 1986, Longe Life provides guidance in the conceptual, physical, operational and management design for health-based resource centers. By creating a "library" of this nature within HealthWorks!, they would be able to further integrate and expand the visitors' experience from classroom to exhibit floor and back into the community with up-to-date health, medical and healthy lifestyle materials. For example, if a child was schedule for surgery and was fearful. His or her parents could bring them to HealthWorks! "Brain Forest" library to learn more about the affected part of the body. This could help the child better understand the surgery and what will be happening to them and help to allay his/her fears.

The "Brain Forest" has grown into a concept that may be duplicated within the school system. Memorial is currently working on a "Brain Forest" prototype at Stanley Clark School, a local private school. It is Memorial's hope that a design process will be underway by 2000 and the resource center would be ready for the fall 2001 school year. This is one example of the many "works in progress" that have originated throughout the process of building HealthWorks!

Memorial had many decisions to make while planning the on-site resource library. In order to develop the best possible resource library they had to ask and answer several important questions. Would the facility be a lending entity? Would they link themselves to the local library circulation system? How would individuals utilize the facility? Would they come in and select materials themselves or submit request forms?

Memorial was also very conscious of the time and money it took to outfit areas of HealthWorks! in a dynamic and creative fashion. A room with traditional library shelves and carrel seating would be out of place. Memorial decided to draw inspiration from the nature theme being utilized in other area's of the HealthPlex. Computer stations would be housed in faux tree trunks. A wall of the resource center would contain a large working aquarium. A colorful nature mural will surround the entire resource center. The mural artists used cloth and other tactile materials to engage kids in both a visual and sensory experience. The artwork is a wonderful example of interactivity between kids and their environment.

After careful and intensive analysis of the materials presented in the Schematic Design Report, on October 1, 1998, the Reach and Teach committee recommended a restructuring of the HealthWorks! Kids' Museum' exhibit floor to Jeff Kennedy Associates. In the plan, exhibits would be divided into three main areas: "MindWorks!" (senses, memory, cognitive ability, creativity), "BodyWorks!" (before referred to as the Human Body area) and "You Are Unique"(which later became known as "All About Me!"). This would be the basis for the next step in the development process, the Design Development stage.