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MORGANTOWN – Spark! Imagination and Science Center hosts its first-ever aviation event, Spark Takes Flight!, on Saturday, Oct. 24 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The experience will take place at its location at 5000 Green Bag Road at the Mountaineer Mall.
The goal of the one-day-only exhibition is to provide hands-on learning opportunities for kids interested in flight travel, according to Kelley Burd-Huss, Imagination Center Executive Director. Activities include glider building, wind tunnel flight experiments, plane design exercises and career exploration.
Ed Waske, Chief Operating Officer of EASW Engine & Airframe Solutions Worldwide and West Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame inductee, will be in attendance and provide real-world anecdotes of his experiences.
Burd-Huss called north-central West Virginia an uncharted territory for careers in STEM and air travel. She hopes the event will inspire children to pursue these job opportunities in the future.
"When you fold a paper airplane and experiment with it, you're being an engineer. You're engineering the aircraft, and it's got a really low barrier to entry in terms of discovery," she said. "This is a place where kids can get ideas. They can maybe find their spark, and they can do so knowing that there are programs right here in our area that can accept them and can carry them through all the way into a fulfilling career."
Following the event, West Virginia's Shakespeare Troupe, The Rustic Mechanics, will perform "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" at the mall.
She is excited for this event in particular to give children the opportunities to learn close to home she wished she had growing up.
"When I was a kid, my parents would take me to science centers and to children’s museums, and because there were none around here, they'd be out of state. My seventh birthday, I went to COSI, the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio, and I had an amazing experience, but one of the things that happened for me, at least, was I started to make the mistake that because I had an amazing experience out-of-state, that's where the opportunity lived," she said. "One of the things we’re trying to do at Spark is help people recognize that the opportunity gap that people are perceiving isn't necessarily the case."
Burd-Huss said this event is one of many planned, rotating "platform" exhibits dedicated to sharing new academic disciplines to the community and collaborating with local partners.
"Using these opportunities really make it so that a small museum like ours isn't the same thing twice," she said. "Every time you come in, you know you're going to find something new to discover."
The event is free with $5 regular admission to the museum for kids and adults. It is free for Center members and those involved in the Museum of All program, which provides free museum admission for families receiving SNAP or WIC benefits.
Visit https://www.sparkwv.org/ for upcoming events and pre-registration details.