The Children’s Discovery Museum in Uptown Normal is giving kids a chance to create and design, in the museum’s Innovation Station Lab and Maker Space.

“The idea is that we don’t need to rely on industry to create the things we need,” Rachel Carpenter, Innovation Station Supervisor, said. “We can use our own innovative thought to meet our own personal needs.”

It’s all part of the museum’s Maker Movement, which aims to give kids confidence to try to design, create, and figure things out for themselves.

“Sometimes kids don’t believe that they can do things for themselves,” Carpenter said. “One of our mottos in the Maker Space is don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid of not trying.”

Giving kids hands on experiences in the Maker Space sets them up for success later in life by developing their STEM (Science, Technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills and interests.

“We know that a large majority of jobs in the future will require some STEM knowledge,” Carpenter said. “We also know from studies that children lose interest in STEM as early as 3rd grade, so we need to mitigate those problems so that our children are prepared for our countries future.”

The movement has even attracted Normal Mayor Chris Koos who is part of a national group known as “Makers Mayors.”

“The mayor has been able to take these concepts and apply them more broadly in our community,” Carpenter said.

The Maker Space is open every Friday and Saturday from 10am to 1pm and is free with admission to the museum.

The museum also offers special Maker Space workshops generally geared for children five years and older.

“It offers them the opportunity to work with children their own age to come up with new ideas,” Carpenter said. “Working in teams is an important skill that everybody needs and is necessary in any job.”

One of the upcoming workshops is the Bottle Bonanza, which is being held on March 21.

“Coca-cola has a really awesome campaign to promote recycling plastic bottles so that they’re not ending up in landfills or our oceans,” Carpenter said. “They have a couple of different design challenges, both artistic and utilitarian, to reuse plastic bottles to make something better.”

This spring the museum will also begin hosting Youth Maker Nights, which will focus on kids ages 10-15.

“Sometimes older kids feel they’re too old to participate in things at a children’s museum,” Carpenter said. “So much of the stuff we do goes across the board though.”

Some of the spring events include Fabrication with Found Objects (March 19), Spark Your Curiosity, Ignite Your Imagination (April 9), and Be the Band (May 21).

This summer the museum is expanding the Youth Maker Nights into a three month long project where they will be upcycling found or broken objects to create a bicycle rack for the uptown circle.

“The goal of the project is to get our core group of kids excited about improving their community and working through the whole design process,” Carpenter said. “We’ll start by coming up with ideas, then finding materials, and then actually executing the idea.”

To learn more about the Maker Movement or any of the individual workshops you can visit http://www.childrensdiscoverymuseum.net for more information