All parents with young children know play is important, but unfortunately the education system is so focused on rote learning that everyone gets caught up in making sure that their kids play the piano and do maths olympiads. A lot of kindergarten programmes actually say children will learn through play, but inevitably, because they are a school, they have to respond to parents’ expectations that children will be completing worksheets and things like that.

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Globally, children are getting less playtime because there is increased pressure to demonstrate academic achievement. It is frustrating for early childhood experts because there has been decades of research showing how important it is for children to play. It develops roundedness and social skills. They learn how to do things like take turns: that’s learning how to be a citizen of the world. Unfortunately, because play is intangible, you can’t quantify it unless you’re an expert and you know how to observe. For example, when a child is digging sand and filling up buckets, they’re using their fine motor skills and learning about the physics of weight, which are skills they’ll need later in life.

Our exhibits were designed for ages ten and under. Children of different ages learn from the same exhibit in a different way. We have something called the wind tube, where you put things in a tube and the items fly up. Young children love throwing things in there and watching them fly. We challenge older children to create a contraption that will fly using only three items, and when they’re older still, they’ll add to it and learn the physics behind it. Even adults will stay for a long time figuring out how to make things fly. Because we’ve designed everything to have educational purpose and meaning, both children and adults can have fun learning experiences.

See more Gen.T honourees from the Education category of the Gen.T List 2020.