Terre Haute Children’s Museum
A water table, titled “Wonders of the Wabash”, that allows visitors to play and experiment with water while learning about the historic and present-day relationship between the Wabash River and the people of Terre Haute.
Inside the Terre Haute Children’s Musuem, this water exhibit shrinks and lightly abstracts the world immediately outside the museum and renders it a playground where history, infrastructure, agriculture, and nature meet. Miniature versions of downtown Terre Haute, historical boat locks, and patches of farmland populate the edges of the river, movable bridges span the width of the table (allowing toy cars driving along the roadway handrail to cross with ease), and guests can interact with local wildlife in the forms of tipping birds and magnetic fish. At one end of the table, visitors can run a simple experiment on flood prevention using retract parking spaces, porous ground, and a rush of water from a tipping bucket, and at the other end, seats built into the table allow toddlers to sit up close and play with sprinklers and water toys. In whole, the exhibit provides plenty of fun for visitors of all ages.