Jason VandenBos and Lauren Risner of Lindenhurst brought their son Augie, 3, to the Kohl’s Children’s Museum’s Pop-Up Museum over the summer in Round Lake. They liked it so much, that they took him again when the traveling exhibit opened in Waukegan. An elementary school science teacher in Antioch Consolidated School District 64,  VandenBos said he liked the injection of STEM (science, technology engineering and math) into many of the museum’s play elements. “This is awesome,” he said. “The kids get to play and learn. There’s a lot of STEM here, and that’s what STEM does.” A family builds a wheeled toy at the Kohl’s Children’s Museum’s Pop-Up Museum in Waukegan. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun) The family was among dozens of parents bringing their children to the Kohl’s Children’s Museum’s Pop-Up Museum Saturday at the College of Lake County’s Lakeshore Campus in Waukegan for a few hours of play. Mariel Spagnoli, the museum’s community engagement manager, said the purpose of the pop-up is to give mainly preschool and elementary school-age children exposure to science, art, reading and more. There is an educational purpose to each of the hands-on exhibits. “That’s exactly what the purpose of the museum is,” Spagnoli said, after hearing about VandenBos’ reaction. “We want to let them play, and we see how they respond. That’s how they learn at their age.” Open to the public from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, and from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturdays, the temporary exhibit will remain at the college through Nov. 23. Then it has a two-month stint — Dec. 14 through Feb. 15 — at the Shiloh Center in Zion. When the pop-up museum opens in Zion, Spagnoli said it will operate from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Walking into the museum, the section to the left is designed to let children explore with their senses. Spagnoli said they experience the difference between opaque and translucent. There is a section behind a curtain where youngsters can see their shadows in assorted colors. A boy gazes in at a ball suspended in the air by a Bernoulli Blower. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun) Gabriel Serrano was exploring the sensory room with his son Gabriel Jr. The youngster stood with his back to an array of different colored lights and saw four shadows of himself — each one a different color. The reaction on his face was wonder, but he watched his shadow in silence. Quinton Bush, 2, was experiencing several of the exhibits, including the AirMazing Station where the participant inserts up to four 12-inch light cotton balls into a maze of tubes which are blown around a cavalcade of tubing and out different openings. Nearby is a Brio train set. In another area of the museum, Quinton and his father Wade were exploring the Rig-ama-jig, where plastic blocks are assembled into a variety of items — one person made a skateboard — using plastic nuts, bolts and tools, to connect the parts. Gabrial Serrano Jr. considers what to make. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun) Taking the parts out of bins, Spagnoli said the children — adults like to help with it, too — tinker with the parts and then start making a variety of things. “It’s fun to help him,”  Bush said, referring to the Rig-ama-jig. “I get to feel like a kid again.” Children also gazed in amazement at the Bernoulli Blower, where plastic balls are suspended in the air as soon as the participant touches a button starting the gentle flow. It is named for an 18th-century scientist. “Bernoulli was a mathematician and physicist in the 1700s,” Spagnoli said. “This is teaching them basic concepts of math and physics.” Mariel Spagnoli explains the gear wall at the Kohl’s Children’s Museum’s Pop-Up Museum. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun) Adjacent to the Rig-ama-jig is a gear wall, where children affix a gear to a wall with a magnet and then another one interlocking with it. Participants can add as many gears of different sizes as they wish to create their moving design. The museum is not exclusively STEM. Spagnoli said there is an “art studio,” with a table for painting and a book nook with a variety of age-appropriate books where a youngster can sit quietly and read. There is help if a child wants it, but they are encouraged to explore their creativity. Not everyone can get to the museum’s home in Glenview. Spagnoli said the pop-up museums, as well as trips to libraries and park district facilities around the area, are ways to expose youngsters — especially preschool children — to STEM and other learning. “Part of our mission is to give access to everybody,” she said. “Learning is pretty much a fundamental right.”