Enter the world of Pattern Wizardry
at the Canadian Children’s Museum!
Gatineau, Quebec, February 6, 2003 — Visitors, be prepared to be transported into Pattern Wizardry, the latest exhibition in the Canadian Children’s Museum at the Canadian Museum of Civilization!
The exhibition has been designed to help visitors explore the notion that patterns are the building blocks of the world. Children enter elaborately patterned stations in this exhibition and enjoy hands-on activities designed to help them identify, recognize and create patterns that can be seen everyday, in every culture throughout the world. Children will enter a world where they can explore spirals and mazes, create their own musical patterns and glowing mosaics, or play with an art-based computer program.
Patterns, whether natural or people-produced, have a magical way of transforming how we see the world. They help organize and enrich our lives, making critical thinking and problem solving fun!
Come on in, try on an enchanted cape and join in the fun of Pattern Wizardry!
The World of Pattern Wizardry Spiral Spells — Visitors entering the spiral enclosure can choose to walk the wonderful winding spiral path; discover the special spirals of various objects in “feely boxes” or by looking through a wizards lens; participate in a coiling activity; or do a finger maze!
Tessellation Station — Enter this honeycomb-shaped section and geometry becomes fun! Visitors are invited to make a beehive home for our buzzing honeybee friends using hexagon-shaped blocks or to create colourful mosaics using patterns on a light-box. With the help of double-sided fabric triangles and a little imagination, children can create their own tabletop quilt or work together to lay a floor of wizardly tessellating lizards!
Linear Lab — Visitors can hop, skip or run over a musical bridge into the lab to experience patterns of sight and sound. Move the xylophone blocks on the outside of the bridge to create sound patterns using various colours and lengths as clues. Make your own colourful bead bag by stacking beads in special loom boxes, or create patterns on an oversize, double-sided “magnadoodle” board, using magnets based on actual printing blocks from India.
Branch, Branch — Whether coral, antlers or embroidery, branching patterns start from a single point and grow outward. In this interactive station, visitors can explore and investigate amazing branching objects or build a tiny forest using forked puzzle parts at a 3-D puzzle station.
In addition to these four stations, a computer pattern station allows visitors to discover rotational patterns. Draw a simple motif and watch as it turns into wallpaper, or design a patterned square and see how it can become a quilt!
Pattern Wizardry was produced by the Brooklyn Children’s Museum for the Youth Museum Exhibition Collaborative and will be featured at the Canadian Children’s Museum from February 1 to May 19, 2003.
Media Information:
Media Relations Officer
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7169
Chief, Media Relations
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7167
Fax: (819) 776-7187
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