BUILD, RENOVATE, AND CREATE AT THE ECOTARIUM WITH NEW HANDS-ON TRAVELING EXHIBIT, BUILDING BUDDIES
January 28, 2025, | News
Worcester, MA – January 28, 2025 – The EcoTarium invites young builders and curious minds to grab a helmet and put on a safety vest as they explore Building Buddies, the museum’s newest interactive traveling exhibit, which opened Saturday, January 25, 2025, with a ribbon cutting ceremony.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony was joined together by Mayor Joe Petty, Senator Michael Moore, Noreen Johnson Smith, President and CEO of the EcoTarium, Katie Chappell, Director of Education and Exhibits, and many members and friends of the museum, for a great opening day!
Director of Education and Exhibits at the EcoTarium Katie Chappell shared, “As we celebrate our 200th Anniversary in 2025 and expand our museum with the new Stoddard Exhibition Hall and Early Childhood Science Learning Center, we’re thrilled to kick off the new year with Building Buddies!
This immersive traveling exhibit brings a vibrant community to life, reflecting our commitment to growth. Children can become planners, builders, and decorators as they work alongside playful ‘buddies’ to improve a neighborhood. It’s the perfect way for families to explore, connect, and celebrate the spirit of building something extraordinary alongside the EcoTarium building project.”
Building Buddies transforms the EcoTarium into a vibrant, hands-on construction zone where children can plan, renovate, decorate, paint, tile, and build their way through a bustling neighborhood of homes.
This immersive exhibition introduces a friendly cast of characters, or “buddies,” who guide young visitors through a series of creative challenges designed to engage problem-solving, teamwork, and imaginative play.
Each home in the neighborhood presents a unique project that encourages exploration and learning through hands-on activities:
• Peter the Architect invites children to plan and organize a house, ensuring stairs lead to every level of the home.
• Eva the Decorator needs help brightening up her bungalow with fresh paint, curtains, and an outdoor flower garden.
• Pipa Longpipe is renovating her home, and visitors can lay patterned tile in the bathroom, tighten leaky pipes, crawl through a large inspection drain, and measure and install siding.
• The Walltons Family needs budding engineers to enlarge their home. Visitors can construct sturdy walls and a tall chimney using foam bricks, ensuring the family—and their dog Winston—stay safe and warm.
• Billy the Brick Layer offers an exciting building experience where children can climb scaffolding, transport foam bricks using pulleys, demolition chutes, and a hand-operated conveyor belt, or move materials with kid-sized wooden wheelbarrows.
Building Buddies combines play and learning in an engaging environment that supports early childhood development. Through activities like measuring, building, and organizing, children develop essential motor skills, logical thinking, and social interaction while fostering creativity and a passion for problem-solving.
Learning Opportunities:
• Problem solve through asking questions and making observations
• Understand a problem to design a solution
• Simple machines help move large loads
• Teamwork is an asset that can be helpful in all kinds of situations
The Building Buddies exhibition will be displayed at the EcoTarium through May 4, 2025. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to learn at the EcoTarium!
To learn more about the exhibit, visit https://ecotarium.org/exhibit/building-buddies/.
For more information about the EcoTarium’s 200th Anniversary, visit https://ecotarium.org/ecotarium-200/
This exhibit is locally sponsored by Timberline Construction Company.
Building Buddies was developed by Loodo Exhibits and touring in partnership with Sciencenter.