Local little inventors

MARQUETTE– Almost six years ago, one local business started selling children’s creations. Over time, the program has evolved into much more.

At the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum, the Kids Bizness Program welcomes new ideas, creativity, productivity, and lastly putting the creations on the market. When the program first began, the final step was selling the inventions at the museum gift store. Now the museum has broadened their goals, incorporating other community organizations in the inventing process for resources and knowledge.

“Sometimes it’s difficult for young people to understand what an entrepreneur is, we have to think about entrepreneurship as fulfilling a need, rather than just selling a product,” General Programming and Education Coordinator Jim Edwards said. “So the products might not be made, they might be services. I like it when a child can take some product somebody else has made, and create another product no one else has ever thought of before.”

Other organizations involved in this process include the Seaborg Center, Invent NMU and the Marquette Chamber of Commerce.
Edwards said more inventions will be shown off at Smart Prize Junior this spring.