By Holly Kline
Conner Prairie Interactive History Park in Fishers will open its new Create.Connect experience on March 27. Create.Connect is an indoor exhibit that has previously existed in various forms. The final version is an interactive space that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math through various exhibits and activities that also purposely include persons and stories with Indiana ties.
“We’re melding history and science,” said Brian Mancuso, Director of Exhibits for Conner Prairie. “We’re doing what Conner Prairie does well, which is to have the first person characters (like those in Prairie town) and the folks in blue shirts who are themselves. In Create.Connect we have a mix of first person and blue shirts,” he continued.
New Create.Connect exhibits and activities include an early aviation area and a 1950’s-era patent office. The early aviation section showcases early Indiana flight activities that took place right before and right after The Wright Brothers, including efforts by the Terre Haute-based Johnson brothers.
“We have a really great glider plane activity,” stated Mancuso, “and artifacts are there for kids and adults to explore together and have meaningful conversations about what they see.”
The patent office within Create.Connect is another great space. “There is a really fun invention activity there,” Mancuso explained. “Kids can creatively make their own invention. We’re also introducing an activity where kids can get a request for an invention and they can make it.”
Conner Prairie built Create.Connect with grants from the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, as well as support from Duke Energy.
“The funding allowed us to partner with Science Museum of Minnesota and we had a really great year of prototyping Create.Connect,” Mancuso said. “They really helped us test it. Our early results indicate that we are communicating science to both genders really well and people are getting it.”
Conner Prairie plans to make the new version of Create.Connect a long term exhibit.
“One thing I want people to know is that if they have come to Conner Prairie to see Create.Connect, the exhibit now will be really changed,” Mancuso stated. “If they’ve seen it before, come back again because it’s a really different experience now.”
