Beyond Boxes: New Imagination Station exhibit redefines ‘cardboard”

        Roll up your sleeves and prepare to unbox your creativity in Imagination Station’s new exhibit “Cardboard: Build Outside the Box,” which opens on Friday, June 7.
        “Cardboard” is an interactive, hands-on experience where visitors put on their construction hats and create using only cardboard. Designed by the Imagination Station team, in partnership with Welch Packaging, the exhibit is divided into six major sections. It demonstrates that with just a simple cut, fold or piece of tape, cardboard can transform into anything one can imagine.
        A towering 13-foot-tall cardboard robot welcomes visitors into the exhibit. Once inside,  they'll discover a 12-foot-long cardboard spaceship that will encourage them to explore many possibilities as they dive into STEAM – science, technology, engineering, art and math.
        The “Cardboard Culture” area taps into your inner artist as you uncover the elements of design; “Flying into the Future” inspires you to create futuristic cars, rockets and airplanes and then race them. In “Toledo of Tomorrow,” you can engineer your vision of what our city will look like in 50 years.
        “Cardboard: Build Outside the Box” supports the science center’s sustainability efforts by repurposing discarded cardboard for visitor activities. All the cardboard that will be used for construction in the exhibit has been previously used and given a second life.
        By reusing and recycling cardboard, the new exhibit helps reduce the demand for fresh resources, conserves energy and oil and saves trees. The exhibit also inspires the community to see new ways they can reuse cardboard. Visitors will also be able to bring in cardboard for reuse and recycling. At the end of the exhibit, Welch Packaging will collect all the reused cardboard and properly recycle it.
        “Our new Cardboard exhibit encompasses all of our goals as a science center,” said Imagination Station Director of Education Jenny Roe. “It highlights our commitment to sustainability, tinkering, learning and community, and provides a space where everyone's imagination can come to life through cardboard. Our visitors are going to be amazed to discover how versatile this simple material is and what they can do with it.”
        “Cardboard: Build Outside the Box” runs through Labor Day. The exhibit is free with paid admission to the science center.