Stepping Out

Sniffing out the facts

A place for every body at Healthyville

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There’s always a season for health and wellness, even when the throes of winter brings out the cranky side of many of us. At Long Island Children’s Museum (LICM) during these dreary months, the focus is on living life to the fullest, as shared in its newest exhibition, “Healthyville.” The exhibit, which was developed by Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk, Conn., and runs through May 3, promotes lifelong wellness by encouraging all ages to live active, healthy lifestyles.
Healthyville is a place for everybody. This bilingual (English/Spanish) exhibit teaches health and wellness lessons through interactive play-filled activities with educational messages that foster learning by doing. Designed primarily for children ages 5-12 and their parents, Healthyville provides kids 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. Families become more aware about how the body works and the effects of our positive or negative health choices.
 The young “residents” of Healthyville guide LICM visitors through the exhibit with fun facts about nutrition, fitness, safety, hygiene and the functions of the body. At the interactive station, families 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. Kids 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, balancing their energy in with their energy out, and choosing the proper safety equipment, among other topics covered. 
“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. 
 Visitors enter Healthyville at the Welcome Center, the first of the five activity areas that make up the exhibition. Families are welcomed to Healthyville by some of the resident “kids” who are eager to greet everyone in their hometown. They have many health-related tips and challenges to share with families to help them explore the activity stations.
The Good Foods Market and Café is a popular spot and destination to learn about nutrition. There visitors can shop, scan food and learn to create healthy meals. A highlight of this segment is the digestive juice bar, an interactive model of the human digestive system that illustrates what happens to food after it is eaten.
At the next station, Nutrition/Activity Balance, families find out about balancing energy in with energy out. A large scale allows kids to pick a favorite snack and balance that with favorite physical activities to stay healthy.
Healthyville Park is the place to get moving. It’s especially appealing now, since the winter weather keeps everyone inside much of the time. Here kids can hop on a bike or row a boat — alongside a skeleton to see how their bones work. Explore how activities affect heart rate, with a large billboard that shows how the cardiovascular and respiratory systems work.
Future doctors in the house will want to check out the Healthyville Care Center, where medical coats and scrubs are ready for role-playing, along with tools and equipment that the professionals use. Families can learn about colds, asthma and allergies, study x-rays and explore Healthyville resident patient charts. Also explore a giant nose and get “smile smart” while practicing flossing and brushing inside a giant mouth.
“The exhibit creates conversation starters for parents and kids to talk about and explore decisions and consequences,” says the museum’s Director of Communications & Marketing Maureen Mangan. “Kids can start to see how their behaviors impact their health and can start to make connections. What’s so great about this exhibit is that it takes sophisticated concepts about health and nutrition and brings it to an understandable conversational level.”
The young visitors are immediately drawn to the bike and rowing machine. “They think riding alongside a skeleton is very cool,” Mangan notes, adding “while parents are excited to show them how to brush their teeth.”
 As always, the museum’s staff has planned a variety of themed activities to enhance the exhibit experience. Performances and special events will expand upon the themes presented throughout Healthyville.
The additional programming includes Zumba classes during next week’s President’s Week hiatus from school, offered Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 17-18, and Friday, Feb. 18, 11 a.m.-noon. Join certified Zumba instructor Diane Phillips as she pumps up the volume and shows everyone how to get their bodies moving and boogie to the beat. Also, the Brooklyn-based Yellow Sneaker Puppets troupe visits the LICM stage with “Lunchtime, Crunch Time,” Feb. 19, at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. During this engaging performance, visitors will help Joey the Kangaroo pack a healthy lunch. Sing along with the Healthy Snack Band and build the sandwich of your dreams and decide which healthy foods provide the most energy for a productive day.
“It’s important that Long Island Children’s Museum, along with other museums across the country, help families start the conversation and provide resources and information that will result in a lifetime of good health,” says Mangan.

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