Just inside the front door of the Imaginarium at Mississippi State University, a group of fourth-graders from Henderson Ward Stewart Elementary race LEGO cars down a ramp, chanting for their design to cross the finish line first.

In another room, a group watches as jellyfish they crafted from paper and string float inside a wind tunnel. A student at another station grips a virtual reality headset as he explores an entirely different world.

While the excitement seems like chaos, it’s anything but. Each station is part of a carefully structured system designed to blend curiosity and creativity into learning.

“We are basically encouraging them to get hands-on,” said Mehdi Garemani, co-director for the Imaginarium and assistant professor of educational psychology. “It’s OK. You can fail. It’s a safe place to fail. … If you drop stuff, that’s gravity!”

The Imaginarium Creativity and STEAM Discovery Center is a learning space that aims to expose students to different science, technology, engineering, arts and math concepts through hands-on activities and creative problem solving.

Students in small groups move through several activity stations in the Imaginarium, where graduate students facilitate a task or a problem that needs to be solved. All activities, Garemani said, are designed to be hands-on and open-ended.

“There is not just one correct answer or correct design,” he said. “We are trying to support creativity.”

The center also aims to give students an idea of what careers in STEM fields can look like early in their education.

“Research suggests that early exposure to the STEM activities, that will facilitate future career goals to be involved in STEM (fields),” Garemani said. “… Middle school … that’s an important age where they are basically deciding for future careers, even for future universities.”

Booked through 2027

While it’s now housed on Morgan Avenue on MSU’s campus, the Imaginarium didn’t start as a building. It started on the road.

Garemani and Sareh Karami, Imaginarium co-director and an associate professor of educational psychology, launched the experience as a traveling makerspace called Imaginarium Express. Seeing how engaged students were with the STEAM activities and noticing the lack of a similar space in Starkville, they decided to pursue an expansion of the show.

Fortunately, the house on Morgan Avenue was “in limbo,” being used as an overflow faculty office, said Daniel Gadke, associate dean of research and head of MSU’s Department of Counseling, Higher Education Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations.

It took more than a year of planning and renovating to turn the space into what it is today, he said.

“We were able to do some soft pilot groups in the summer and in the fall (of last year),” Gadke said. “Then in January, you guys really hit the ground running.”

By the end of January, the Imaginarium was booked out for the rest of 2026. The center has served more than 600 students so far this year, with reservations booked out through February 2027.

The feedback from students, schools and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive, Garemani said.

“Any time we can get out of the school building, you kind of step to a new level of engagement,” said Shaina Jefferson, a fourth-grade teacher at HWS. “(It gives) them the opportunity to come and see all of these (STEAM skills) that we’ve been teaching them all year … and see how they can be used in the real world.

“… I love the fact that this is something that’s now available in Starkville to kind of immerse kids and give them opportunities to really see what these careers really can be,” she added.

‘A well-oiled machine’

Garemani said the Imaginarium’s uniqueness lies in two factors “you cannot see in any other science museum.” Students move through the center with a structured activity plan, spending about 15 minutes at each station working toward a specific goal.

“Usually when they have free play, they wouldn’t engage fully (in) those activities or stations at the end because sometimes they are scared to touch all those magnet pieces on the wall, for example,” he said.

That particular aspect, he said, has received rave reviews from teachers bringing their students in for the trip, who typically spend their field trips corralling students.

The second unique feature, Garemani said, is the role of the graduate students who, along with facilitating activities, have had a hand in each part of designing the Imaginarium.

“This is basically a research lab (for them),” he said. “… They are developing research ideas based on these activities. … Learning, creativity, student engagement, they are all topics that we cover in educational psychology.”

Jefferson said the graduate students’ instruction during the trip allowed her to focus on working directly with her students.

“(They) are doing such a great job leading these groups and kind of catching the kids’ attention, being really clear with their expectations,” she said. “That’s the key because management is everything. It can be a great experience, but if it’s not managed well, it falls apart. And this is running like a well-oiled machine.”

For graduate student Seger McGuire, working with students through the Imaginarium has not only taught her more patience but also how to learn and engage young students more effectively.

“There are moments where – you have to be very intentional with it – but you can see their AHA moments with the VR sets on,” McGuire said. “Watching that shy kid start to become more animated … and seeing them explore is rewarding.”

McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.

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