Discovery Room

Home / Discovery Room

Introduction

The Discovery Room is a special space for kids to interact and experience creative activities. It is also a place for organizing educational activities for students. It has been serving for thousands of students of ages between 3 – 14 or seven years.The Discovery Room is a venue for young visitors to discover museum content, by exploring, experiencing, and participating in educational activities, It is also a space for young visitors to learn more about sex and gender, to promote gender equality, as well as, gain necessary skills to face dangerous situations and to protect themselves. The content is presented through visual educational tools, including interactive and experiential games; actively engaging students as they learn new information.VWM Discovery Room opened on Oct. 18, 2010 at the same time as the reopening of the museum’s permanent exhibits. With support of the UNESCO office in Vietnam, a new project to upgrade and change its contents was conducted after few years of operations. In Nov 2017, the Discovery Room was reopened with new content and activities.Main acitivities at the Discovery Room:
- Sex and Gender Corner
- Activity Corner
- Reading Corner

Sex and Gender Corner

This area is created to enhance students’ awareness of sex, gender, gender equality, reproductive health knowledge and skills for protecting themselves so that it helps to eliminates gender stereotypes in schools, families, and in society.

Activities in the Discovery Room inlcude: How was I born?, How are we different and similar?, Skills for self protection, and Stages of Rice Production. The Discovery Room content was developed by using and applying interactive activities and creating interest for students to actively gain knowledge. These activities are suitable to chidren who visit the museum with school groups or with family members. The Discovery Room encourages parents to talk and chat with their children about reproductive health or enhance their awareness of the family roles in their housework.

How was I born?

This actitivity will answer the curious questions from kids. In addition,it will help parents explain tough questions their children ask, such as “How do you have a baby?” and better inform the kids about the stages of pregnancy while revealing interesting facts. In short, this game aims to honor family values and their parents’ love to the kids.

How are we different and similar?

This game will help students gain basic knowledge and understand more about sex and gender. Questions such as “What is going on with me?”, “Why” will be clarified by taking part in the game and improve the kids’ life skills so that they become more confident when entering the teenager period.

What should I do to protect myself?

Do you know that one in every four girls has been sexually abused, one in every six boys has been sexually abused, and 90% of abusers are known by the abused children? Younger children between the ages from 4 to 10 are at high risk of being abused because they are at the age of discovering everything but without having basic life skills. The game “Opening secret doors” will provide you more basic information relating to how to protect yourself when children are faced with those situations. You could also play this game yourself, with your parents or in a group. You also create humorous jokes or plays from those situations, etc.

Whose work is it?

Do you think household chores should be clearly divided between parents and family members? This game promises interesting outcomes when the kids interact with a balance scale. Many kids, after spending just a few minutes, comment: “My mom does a lot of housework!” Or” my dad does a lot around the house!” The kids realize the scale is lopsided for one parent and walk away with a better understanding that there is a need to “balance” household chores to ensure a happy family.

Stages of rice cultivation

Rice is a staple of the national diet in Vietnam. Our ancestors honoured the rice and called it “Ngoc Thuc”. Ngoc Thuc will be more and more lively and close to kids through interactive games and discovery.

This game provides details about the usage of unhusked rice, husk, bran. Kids can also gainknowledge about the stages of rice cultivation: germination, tillering, reproductive phase, flowering phase and harvesting.

Creativ Thinking Corner

VWM has focused on creative thinking skills through developing educational programmes. Three scientific models sponsored by The Australian National Center for Science and Technology donated three scientific activities: balancing nails, balancingballs,and Brahma Tower which explains physical phenomenons related to weight, motion and balance. Kids will leave with a better understanding about how these phenomena related to daily .

This area of the Discovery Room also offers colourful lego sticks, which kids can create and develop models that they desire. This activity helps to improve their patience and value for the work completed. Family members can work together to create “works of art”.

Reading Corner

Reading is one of the most important skills forkids. VWM encourages kids to pick up a book and put down their digital devices. The Reading Corner is designed to be enticing, and encourages kids to be interested in reading and discover knowledge from books. Many publishers and organizations have donated books to the Reading Corner. VWM would like to thank Kim Dong Public House, Tre Public House, Women Public Houseand especially the Asia Foundationfor their generous donations of books. There is a variety of books to chose from including literary books, , foreign language books, vocational books, and educational books.