Number Crunching: an exhibition exploring the power and magic of numbers

Do you play Monopoly? If you do you may have come across the Old Kent Road, the cheapest place to buy real estate in London on the monopoly board. The Livesey Museum for Children is situated on this road. We are surrounded by warehouse buildings, fast food chains, backed by housing estates and are on one of Britain's busiest 'A' roads.

The Livesey is a small museum and is run by the Cultural and Heritage section within the London Borough of Southwark in south-east London. We have no permanent collection but access the collections of our sister organisations, the Cuming Museum and South London Gallery.

We design and produce in-house temporary hands-on exhibitions that run for approx. nine months working with local designers with a small budget to build low- tech interactives. Aimed at children under 12, exhibitions are accompanied by events, workshops and weekly under five's' sessions.

Children have the opportunity to learn through educational exhibits that encourage them to interact, experiment and learn through investigation. The museums main aims are to encourage children's self -esteem, creativity and imagination and give a child a sense of achievement.

We have free admission and have a regular group of local children who frequent the museum, helping visitors as volunteers to use and interact with the exhibits. We are currently in the process of establishing these young people into a formalised children's volunteer group, to provide creative opportunities and life long learning skills. Working with museum staff they will be involved in the developmental work of producing exhibitions and events at the museum. A structured educational and imaginative programme overseen by the museum will not only empower the group but will also provide for museum staff and designers invaluable input and insight from the under 12's perspective.

Number Crunching is an exhibition that explores numbers in an imaginative way and ties in with the government initiative Maths Year 2000 and complements the numeracy hour in schools for Key stage 1 and 2.
Number Crunching is divided into several sections covering topics such as time, music, currency, and measurements.

The Games Room features a series of hands on exhibits that cover number recognition, chance and probability. Simple interactives such as wall 'tile puzzles', 'the wheel of fortune' and 'roll a penny' show number ordering, chance and average, data handling and calculation.

Another section in this exhibition is Made to Measure exploring different ways of measuring. The earth interactive is one exhibit that enables children to discover time zones around the world, using a giant model of earth and three interactive clocks. Our giant climb-on snakes and ladders game is a chance for groups of children to play a traditional game on a large scale while practising their number skills.

All the interactives in this exhibition encourage children to learn through role-play, exploration and experimentation. Interactives can be used on different levels for different age groups enabling children to find their own way of using and learning from the exhibits.

Number Crunching is open until September 2000.

For further information please contact:
Theresa Dhaliwal, Museum Manager, Livesey Museum for Children, 682 Old Kent Road, London SE15 1JF
tel. 020 7639 5604, fax 020 7277 5384 , email livesey.museum@southwark. gov.uk

Newsletter Spring 2000 Contents

New exhibitions > Opening dates for UK exhibitions | New Yorkshire Centre | Young builders | Number exhibition | What's wrong with the Millennium Dome?

News > Canadian Director for Eureka | Design in education Week | The 'Race against time' show pack | Indo-UK Science Festival | From the editor | From the chair

BIG Annual Report 1999 > Chair's Report | Treasurers Report | Membership Report