The exhibition was created by the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in collaboration with IMAGINARY (Germany) as part of the international project “Supporting Science Engagement in Mathematics in Ukraine”. The project was implemented by Ecsite, the European Network of Science Centres and Museums, with the support of the Simons Foundation.

Touching Mathematics: A Hands-On Learning Experience

In MATH OUT OF THE BOX, the usual museum rule “Do not touch the exhibits” does not apply. Here, touch itself is a way of exploring.

The exhibition consists of 13 interactive stations — each offers not a ready-made answer, but a way to find it. Draw a circle by hand and find out how accurate you are. Enter an equation and watch it turn into a three-dimensional surface before your eyes. Build a pyramid out of spheres and discover the principle that determines how atoms are arranged in metals and seeds in a sunflower. Or forget about calculations altogether and listen as balls bouncing off strings come together to create a melody.

Twelve-year-old Yehor began his own scientific journey with the “See the Music: Physics of Sound” exhibit: “ I go to music school, so of course I couldn’t walk away from an exhibit where you can create a melody. I was also really interested in the puzzles. I spent almost all my time there. And overall, all the exhibits are pretty cool.” That is how the exhibition worked: children were drawn in by what was familiar, but stayed longest with things they had never tried before.

According to the team’s observations, young visitors rarely needed explanations. The exhibits closely correspond to what they learn at school, so instead of asking “How does this work?”, the most common thing heard at the exhibits was, “Look, I did it!”

Explainer (specialist who helps visitors understand the scientific content of the exhibits) Alina Avershyna names five exhibits where there was a constant queue: “Perfect Circle,” “See the Music: Physics of Sound,” “Sphere Packing,” “Fit into a Cube,” and “Perception of Time.” Her colleague Anna Dakhno recalls the youngest visitors at the “Parabolic Calculator”: they could hardly believe that a product could be calculated so easily. Most often, however, children asked just one thing: couldn’t these exhibits stay at their school forever?

The exhibition does not require children to come up with the right answer. The exhibits are designed to encourage them to ask questions, make assumptions, test them, and, if necessary, start again. Here, a mistake is not a failure, but part of the exploration.
Twelve-year-old Valeriia eventually solved the “Mathematical Tetris” puzzle, concluding: “If you want to do something but you can’t get it right away, you have to keep trying again and again, and you’ll get results.”

An Exhibition That Can Be Recreated in the Classroom

Alongside the exhibition, the team at the Junior Academy of Sciences developed a set of open-access teaching materials for mathematics teachers who use inquiry-based, modelling, and activity-based approaches. These materials make it possible to recreate the experience of the interactive exhibition without the physical exhibits.

Methodological guidelines were prepared for each of the 13 exhibits. They were complemented by lesson plans for different age groups based on the New Ukrainian School (NUS) curriculum, inquiry-based and practical tasks, as well as instructions for making simple models from readily available materials. As a result, a class can build its own “Perfect Circle” or sphere pyramid and carry out the same investigation in the classroom.

“It was important to us that the children’s encounter with mathematics would not end with the exhibition. Each exhibit should encourage a student to ask a question and conduct their own investigation, while giving the teacher an opportunity to continue this work in the classroom. That is why our team prepared materials for school lessons: methodological guidelines, lesson plans for different age groups, inquiry-based and practical tasks, and instructions for making models. Even the simplest readily available materials can be used to create a model that helps students see mathematics, touch it, and understand how it works,” says Dr. Kateryna Terletska, Head of the Mathematical Sciences Laboratory at the National Centre “Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine”.

Bringing Science Where It Is Needed Most

The exhibition visited Nizhyn, Pyriatyn, Romny, Pryluky, Orzhytsia, Myrhorod, Opishnia, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Zavodske, and Bilohorodka, reaching communities across Chernihiv, Poltava, Sumy, Khmelnytskyi, and Kyiv regions. A significant part of the route passed through communities where children rarely have an opportunity to visit a science museum or experience a modern interactive exhibition. That is why *MATH OUT OF THE BOX *was designed not to wait for children to come to the museum, but to bring the museum to them. You can see how it happened here.

This idea also shaped the design of the exhibition: the exhibits had to be easy to assemble, withstand frequent relocation, and function in different settings — from a classroom to a shelter.

*“From the very beginning, we designed the exhibition with its future journey in mind. Each exhibit had to be light enough for one person to carry and assemble, take through narrow doorways, or carry down steep stairs to a shelter. Such details may seem purely technical, but in Ukraine’s circumstances, they determine whether the exhibition can reach children,” *explains Mariia Dubrova, Head of the Science and Education Exhibitions Department at the National Centre “Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine”.

When an air-raid alert sounded, the children’s exploration of mathematics did not stop: educational activities, puzzles, and practical tasks were moved to shelters, where the children continued exploring despite the circumstances. In Myrhorod and Romny, in particular, the exhibitions operated exclusively in shelters.

“What impressed me most were the trips to small towns, where not every child has the opportunity to visit a science museum or a mathematics museum. It was incredible to see their reaction when they realised that the exhibits were not only there to look at, but could also be touched. Sometimes a child would spend more than half an hour exploring a single exhibit. That is when you realise just how important this kind of work is,” says Anna Danylenko, Head of the Organisational and Technical Department.

Partnership That Creates Opportunities

The implementation of the travelling exhibition MATH OUT OF THE BOX was not only a story of successful international cooperation, but also a major step forward in engaging people with science in Ukraine. With the support of Ecsite, the Simons Foundation, and IMAGINARY, the JASU team developed its own expertise in creating interactive exhibits and laid the foundation for future exhibitions.

MATH OUT OF THE BOX has shown that modern education does not have to remain confined to large cities. It can travel across the country, reach schools and communities, and open up mathematics to children through their own exploration.