Living Laboratory: Real-World Research at Madison Children’s Museum

If you’ve been in our Wildernest exhibit area for early learners lately, you may have noticed some child development studies taking place in the Cozy Cottage. We recently began participating in the Living Laboratory project, a unique educational on-site research program designed in collaboration with the Boston Museum of Science, the National Science Foundation and researchers from the University of Wisconsin Waisman Center.

A researcher from UW-Madison’s Waisman Center interacts with a child participating in the latest study taking place in the Wildernest’s Cozy Cottage.

You can find the Living Laboratory for cognitive research set up in the Wildernest a few hours a day, Tuesday-Saturday. Check the sign on the Cozy Cottage for exact times each day. As part of the program, researchers conduct studies involving young visitors in the museum and educate visitors about their work. The Living Lab helps visitors understand how children develop cognitive skills. Right now in the Living Lab, there is one study being conducted about how children read body language to figure out who is in charge. There’s also study on sharing, to see how children might use social categories when deciding how to share. Stop down if you are interested in finding out more about the research and cognitive development of young children. The studies take less than 10 minutes and are a nice, easy way to help advance learning in the field of child development at UW-Madison.

Madison Children’s Museum was selected to be the only Midwest site for the Living Laboratory, and the only children’s museum participating in the project.