Children’s health matters. Healthyville is a place for everybody. The bilingual, interactive exhibit teaches health and wellness lessons through play-filled activities and educational messages that foster learning by doing.
Children’s health matters. Not only is it a topic of vital importance for Long Island’s parents and families, but it is a critical issue for the short- and long-term health of our community as well. Because children’s early experiences are instrumental in shaping their lifelong habits and views on health and well-being, it is crucial to introduce and promote key health messages to them today. Healthyville, a nationally touring exhibit created by Stepping Stones Museum for Children, delivers those important health and wellness lessons to children and families in a fun, play-based manner. This is a primary reason why Long Island Children’s Museum is excited to bring Healthyville to the region from Jan. 23-May 3.
Healthyville is a place for everybody. This bilingual (English and Spanish), interactive exhibit teaches health and wellness lessons through play-filled activities and educational messages that foster learning by doing. Designed primarily for children ages 5–12 and their parents, caregivers, and teachers, Healthyville provides visitors with hands-on opportunities to explore health topics in ways that help them understand their bodies, the importance of making healthy choices, and how to apply these concepts in everyday situations. Healthyville features engaging content about how the body works and the effects of our positive or negative health choices.
The young “residents” of Healthyville present fun facts about nutrition, fitness, safety, hygiene, and the functions of the body. LICM visitors can explore how different activities affect heart rate, scan a variety of foods for nutrition facts, play sugar or salt detective, and ride a bike or row a boat alongside a skeleton. Children can take a look at particle-trapping hairs and boogers inside a giant nose, learn why it’s important to cover the nose during a sneeze, brush and floss teeth inside a giant mouth, get moving on the fitness trail, balance their energy in with their energy out, choose the proper safety equipment, and much, much more!
“Hosting Healthyville allows LICM to extend its role as a community resource; enabling children and adults to learn strategies regarding nutrition, fitness, and health in ways that are memorable and meaningful,” says LICM president Suzanne LeBlanc. The exhibit’s arrival is timed to take advantage of healthy mindsets. “The beginning of the year is when many people re-commit to health and fitness and Healthyville can provide families and school groups with fun and encouraging ‘take away’ information that will inspire them to continue on their healthy path,” she notes.
According to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, nearly 1 in 3 children in the United States today is overweight or obese. The Alliance states that this current generation could be the first in American history to live shorter lives than their parents. To address this growing public health concern and to encourage healthy living and smart choices around nutrition, fitness, hygiene, and safety, Stepping Stones Museum for Children launched the Healthyville traveling exhibit. The exhibit will travel to leading children’s museum across the nation through the Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative including Bay Area Discovery Museum (Sausalito, CA), Boston Children’s Museum (Boston, MA), Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (San Jose, CA), and the Minnesota Children’s Museum (St Paul, MN).
“Healthyville grew out of the knowledge that early intervention and prevention are critical for establishing healthy lifestyles,” said Rhonda Kiest, president and chief executive officer of Stepping Stones Museum for Children. “This exhibit is an important aspect of our work to support the growth of healthy children and healthy communities. Healthyville has been an extremely popular exhibit at Stepping Stones and we are thrilled to provide this experience to the many people who will interact with the exhibit as it tours the United States.”
In developing the Healthyville traveling exhibit, Stepping Stones worked in partnership with many community organizations and advisors, including the Bright Bodies Program at Yale School of Medicine, the Norwalk Health Department, Norwalk Hospital, Grade A ShopRite, Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, the Yale School of Public Health, the Yale School of Medicine, and Whole Foods Market.
Long Island Children’s Museum has planned a variety of complementary workshops and performances to extend the themes introduced in the travelling exhibit. Upcoming programs include Perfect Parfaits (Sunday, Jan. 25 at 2pm), A Taste of Tortilla (Sunday, Feb. 1 at 2pm), Yellow Sneaker Puppets present “Lunchtime Crunch Time” (Thursday, Feb. 19 at 11:30am and 2pm) and Zumba® Zoom Zoom! (Tuesday, Feb. 17, Wednesday, Feb. 18, and Friday, Feb. 20 1-2pm).
