Hands on Habitat Grows to a New Level
Chicago Scenic partnered with the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum on an extension of their popular Hands on Habitat exhibit. The exhibit was specially designed for children ages three to seven as a place to learn about natural wetlands, prairie environments and the animals that inhabit them. With the help of Chicago Scenic, the museum literally took the exhibit to a whole new level.

When Mike Sarna, director of exhibits/designs, and Dawn Bennett, production supervisor of exhibits/designs, came to Chicago Scenic with a concept for the exhibit, the design team of Tom Ryan and Ryan Hall set to work creating a permanent three-story tree house and interactive games, and redesigning the original exhibit to make room for the new additions. All of the elements were specifically designed low to the ground to be easily accessible for children and to encourage adults to get down to their level to experience the exhibit. CSSI’s Ken Zommer served as the project manager, and Andy Lemerand and Mike Zaremba served as job leads.

All of the activities CSSI created for the expansion were desinged to help children discover the life cycle of trees and the animals that inhabit them. One activity called “What’s a Living Thing” helps children determine if something is alive or not by comparing living and inanimate objects. For this activity, CSSI created a large display panel with graphics of different objects and doors that reveal the answer when lifted.

For another interactive game, Chicago Scenic painted a mural on existing metal doors and provided magnetic objects that could be moved around into the different spaces that allowed children to place animals into their appropriate homes. The “Animal Apartments” activity, for which CSSI provided a faux hollowed out log, helps children discover all the different types of animals that might live in a log. For the “Prairie” activity, Chicago Scenic used an existing cave area in the exhibit and created a built-in periscope where kids go into the cave and look through a periscope to see what animals inhabited the prairie above.

The main focal point of the exhibit is a 35-foot-tall three-level tree house. On the tree’s first level, kids can discover how a tree absorbs nutrients from the ground with its roots through an interactive display, and can go down a worm-style slide. A giant climbing net sits between the first and second floors that allows children to climb from one level to another. The second level includes a hollowed-out tree trunk as well as a set of “bug binoculars” that allows them to see the world with segmented vision like a fly. The third level, which is handicap accessible, has a wind machine that the kids can operate to blow seedpods and leaves suspended from the tree, along with crank handles that move the wings of bees, butterflies, and dragonflies flying overhead.

The tree house was created from a steel structure that was assembled and welded by certified welder Andy Lemerand, and clad in wood by Mike Zaremba. The base of the tree was covered in carved foam and painted by Kevin Taylor. Throughout the installation process, which took about a month to complete, the museum allowed visitors to view the installation of the tree house from a second floor overlook.

<<Back to Exhibits/Museums
<<Back to Fall 2003 Newsletter