Lifelong Learning Success Stories

With a beautiful campus, impressive aeronautic exhibits and airplane displays—including the Spruce Goose—plus a gorgeous, wood-paneled, state-of-the art theater with a 70-foot screen, the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, has something for just about everyone. But while theater programming during museum hours honors space, aviation, and military service, Evergreen Aviation saw potential for new audiences, new opportunities for learning and education, and new revenue possibilities. Evergreen Aviation had dabbled in programming first-run Hollywood films after museum hours, but they really wanted to offer [...]

Australia’s IMAX Melbourne, home to the world's largest cinema screen and located in the Melbourne Museum Precinct, understands not only the power of the giant screen to educate and inspire but its own responsibility in providing that experience to students as well. “As part of Museums Victoria and as an exhibitor of groundbreaking, STEAM-facing documentary films,” says IMAX Melbourne Museum General Manager Richard Morrison, “it’s our duty to speak to those young people with an interest in pursuing a career in the STEAM fields. Our aim [...]

By night, Eclipse Theaters, located in the Arts District in downtown Las Vegas, is an upscale, concierge-style 4K cinema showing first-run movies, independent films, and live music. But by day, these same theaters offer educational field trips to area students as part of the Cinema Learning Challenge (CLC) program. CLC is the brainchild of Tina Ratterman, founder and president of GSCA member BIG & Digital, a distributor of family-friendly, educational films and documentaries for museums, planetariums, and attractions. BIG & Digital's CLC program features museum-quality films [...]

The Program Tennessee Aquarium is always seeking ways to provide unique views of life above and below the surface of the water, as well as create meaningful experiences both within, and outside of, the Aquarium that spark curiosity and a desire to get out and explore nature. To that end, Backyard Wilderness 3D was scheduled for the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater's spring break time frame. This film was perfectly aligned with the Aquarium’s mission to “connect people with nature and empower them to make informed decisions [...]

Challenger Learning Center develops learning labs for every giant screen film on their schedule, which provides students the opportunity to apply what they learned in the film, and reinforces the message and educational content in the film. The film/learning lab combo has also convinced school principals and committees to approve field trips. The Program The Challenger Learning Center (CLC) in Tallahassee, Florida, strongly believes in the power of the giant screen to tell a story and, more importantly, inspire action. CLC has also found that once [...]

It all started with a rough cut screening of the film Dream Big, which sparked the idea to not just show the film but to have a “year of the engineer” with all forms of programming centering around engineering. Discovery Place’s Year of the Engineer (YOE) initiative, which spanned the 2017-2018 school year, was launched to celebrate the ingenuity and creativity of engineers and to inspire youth to consider engineering and other STEM careers to become the problem solvers of the future. Through Year of the [...]

Launched as part of an ongoing initiative to inspire an interest in and understanding of science and natural history, Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, debuted its all-new, adults-only science series, Fernbank After Dark in February 2017. Held from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on the second Friday of each month, Fernbank After Dark features experiences themed specifically to the science-based topic of the month, as well as live music, films in the Giant Screen Theater, small bites, and a rotating menu of craft cocktails and beers [...]

While showing To the Arctic, Discovery Place Science in Charlotte, North Carolina, became an Arctic Ambassador Center for Polar Bears International. Through a collaborative, interdepartmental effort, Discovery Place Science—led by Director of Science Labs Juliann Chavez—launched programs that celebrate both International Polar Bear Day (February 27) and International Sea Ice Day (July 15). These educational initiatives are aimed at teaching visitors about the problems polar bears are facing and include activities geared toward both adults and children about how to reduce the carbon emissions that threaten sea ice levels and ultimately [...]

Imaginary friends aren’t so imaginary when they can actually answer your questions. IMAX’s new augmented reality (AR) project, launched to coincide with the giant screen documentary Pandas, has taken the concept of extending the learning experience beyond the theater to a whole new technological level. With the AR app, kids interact with a panda named Genius to learn more about the pandas they just saw in the theater. The free iOS app from Yakables (the Android version will be available soon) is IMAX’s first foray into [...]

At Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, kids of all ages embark on learning adventures through hands-on, minds-on PLAY. Marbles IMAX Theatre plays a unique role in those adventures, especially for the more than 12,000 4th-8th grade students who participate in a Marbles IMAX Learning Lab field trip (Learning Labs) each year. In 2008, Marbles developed Learning Labs to give school groups an opportunity to make deeper curriculum connections to their super-sensory IMAX movie experience. Learning Labs provide students with challenge, choice, and custom activities connected to the North [...]