An exhibition that focuses on climate change titled Our Climate Quest is underway at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC). It began on May 6 and is being held in conjunction with Science North based out of Sudbury, Ont.
Our Climate Quest is designed as an interactive exhibit that shows what people can do to help with sustainablility to inspire youth to take action.
“Things like riding their bike or turning off the lights or composting and recycling to help the planet,” said Kennedy Williamson, science communicator with Science North.
Williamson and Melissa Mills, who’s also a science communicator with Science North, drove a moving van across the country loaded with all the equipment and displays needed for set-up.
“We’ve brought basically this entire room with us the entire way,” Williamson said.
The exhibition includes kiosks with touch-screen videos that participants can interact with and watch, along with games and hands-on activities such as the biodiversity Jenga tower.
“The goal is to hit all of the provices and territories along the way,” Williamson said. “We started in southern Ontario and Niagara Falls, then made our way up into Manitoba, Saskatchewan, northern Alberta and here in Yellowknife.”
Mills said that interacting with youth has been the best part of her journey to date.
It’s the first time for both Williamson and Mills in Yellowknife and Williamson said that there are a lot of similarities between both the capital and Sudbury, such as the environment, rocks, lakes and geology.
“We’ve been enjoying the sights and it’s very cool area.” she said.
Mary Buckland, curator of heritage education and public programming for the heritage centre, said it’s fantastic to have such a complete exhibit pop up in the museum
“The concept of traveling an exhibit from community to community is something that we would love to do across the North, so looking at how they have physically built the exhibit is very fascinating to us here in the building,” she said.
Buckland has also reached out to schools to book classes to come see the exhibit.
The last day of the exhibit will be on May 21 and the public can attend the exhibition from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.