Petersen Automotive Museum Offering Free Online Education

Keep the kids busy while you’re in quarantine.

With COVID-19, the novel Coronavirus, spreading around the United States, parents are faced with a unique challenge: what to do with bored kids. That’s more difficult with all kinds of venues shutting down. While they certainly could watch Sponge Bob all day or maybe even try watching the entire Fast and Furious franchise, neither activity is educational. Thankfully the Petersen Automotive Museum has come to the rescue with free educational live streams twice a day. Plus, it’s a good way to indoctrinate young ones with an interest in cars.

The first live stream of each day will be a lecture beginning at 10 am Pacific. After that, at 1 pm, will be hands-on activity. While any kid or adult could certainly watch the live streams, the content is specifically targeted to an audience agreed 12 and under.

Slated for tomorrow is a lesson on the history of automobiles, including how cars have evolved over the past century-plus. The activity has children making their own license plates. Thursday’s lecture is a story about dogs and cars, while the activity is making a car of their favorite animal.

For Friday’s lecture, kids will learn about the design process for automobiles. Then for the activity they will create a car model, which expands on that aspect of design.

Not only can the kids watch these live streams, Petersen is also offering downloadable worksheets and color sheets. This keeps the little ones busier longer and maybe helps with learning a little more.

So far, this free program is running through Friday, so take advantage of it while it’s still around. It’s possible the museum will extend this service out, especially since the press release says future lessons will cover racing, propulsion, and aerodynamics.

Petersen Automotive Museum has closed as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak. Right now, the closure is scheduled to end after March 31, but that could most definitely change.

Check out all the Petersen Automotive Museum educational resources here.

Photo credit: Petersen Automotive Museum