Skyline College hosted the SIM Mateo “Museum of Tomorrow” pop-up exhibit in the sustainability nook of the library in Building 5 from Nov. 13 to Dec. 5.

The installation is meant to provide students with a hands-on learning experience teaching them about clean energy use in California and San Mateo County. The learning pad set on the table allows students to play an interactive game, where they place green cards within the slots of miniature factories laid across the diorama, in order to understand how much of California and San Mateo County is run on clean and renewable energy. 

Equity Librarian Pia Walawalkar said how she brought the SIM Mateo exhibit to the Skyline Library in order to get students engaged with the idea of renewable energy through the format of a game.

“I wanted to bring [this exhibit] because, firstly, it is sort of modeled on a game, so it’s interactive,” Walawalkar said. “It’s not just something that you have to read, so it’s one more thing that we are asking students to read, but it is more engaging with the exhibit, actually literally touching and looking at things. So I think that to me it was an opportunity to get students engaged, because they do get curious.”

Jimmy La, a student who helped work on the exhibit, spoke about how the project came about while walking students through how the exhibit worked. 

“This exhibit came about with a collaboration between the community college school district’s sustainability department,” La said. “They received a grant from Peninsula Clean Energy to create three interactive exhibits to teach students about sustainability topics.”

La said that he hopes the exhibit will help teach students more about renewable energy and how it works. 

“My hope is that students will learn a little bit about sustainability, learn where the power is coming from, and sort of understand the power source and the grid and all that,” La said. 

Izzy Chuong, a Skyline student who interacted with the exhibit, spoke about how she felt the exhibit lacked more in-depth information about sustainability.

“I think it’s a good way for people to learn about sustainability, how our environment is, because climate change is such a big issue now, but if I were in college, and I was making this exhibit I think I’d add a lot more information about our climate right now,” Chuong said. “I feel like this is a good start to bringing awareness on our campus, but I feel like it just needs to be a little bit more educational.”