Everything past the drawing.
The free level is one card, one drawing. Members work on the projects themselves — filming, writing, building, producing — and everything published carries the names of the people who made it, including the youngest ones.
The projects
Real productions with a beginning and an end, not exercises. You can join one or all of them.
This Day My Way, extended
The same daily cards, answered in any format: film, audio, writing, models, photography. Tutorials show you how, and the best answers become galleries, films and card sets.
Mess Like an Artist
A course and an art kit built with partner studios: chase the ideas behind famous artists through experiments, materials and your own media. Designed for ages 6+ together with an adult.
Advent & seasonal series
A daily making project through December, filmed as it goes. Members shoot their own days and the results are cut into one piece.
Biodiversity — animated short
Our first film: ten young co-creators researched the subject, designed the creatures, drew frames and recorded the voices. In the edit now. Everyone who worked on it is in the credits by name.
Family Co-Lab — Niagara Falls
In-person sessions at the Innovation Hub: cameras, sound, materials and a space to make a mess in. Work as a crew — research, camera, sound, hosting, editing.
Podcast & interviews
Members prepare questions, run interviews and host episodes. One good question is where a podcast starts.
Games & prototypes
Turn a card or a project into a game, a quest or an activity box — tested on other families before it ships.
What you get out of it
- Your name in the credits of anything your work ends up in — first name and age for anyone under 18.
- A copy of the product your work goes into, sent to you.
- The Creator Fund. A fixed share of what our products earn goes back to the people who made the work: awards, materials, and places at sessions for families who need them. We publish what comes in and what goes out, once a year.
- The skills, on video. Shooting, editing, sound, interviewing, writing a card — tutorials you keep access to while you're a member.
Two levels
Membership is per family, not per child — bring whoever wants to work on it.
Online member
- All the online projects above
- Submit in any format, month after month
- Video tutorials: shooting, editing, sound, interviewing, writing
- Eligible to join online production teams
- Credits, a copy of the product, Creator Fund
One permission form to complete — see below.
Join online — $50Co-Lab member — Niagara Falls
- Everything in the online membership
- In-person sessions at the Innovation Hub
- Cameras, sound, materials and space
- Work on productions as a crew
- First call on prototype teams and pilots
Two forms: the permission form, plus consent to being filmed during sessions.
Join the waitlistFees keep the free cards free and the gear working. Nobody is turned away over money — if the fee is the problem, write to us and we'll sort it out quietly.
Permissions, plainly
Once you're making things that get published, we need your permission in writing. One form covers most of it, it takes two minutes, and every box is optional except the first.
The Release — everyone signs this
Four tick boxes: we may film you · we may use what you make · we may put it on products we sell · we may use it in promotion. Tick what you're comfortable with. Signed once, not every time. A parent or guardian signs for anyone under 18.
Read it · fill it in online →Products — a separate yes
If your work goes onto something we sell — a card set, a print, a magnet, a kit — that's its own box on the form, and you can leave it blank. We'll tell you when and where it was used, and send you a copy.
How products work →Being filmed at a session
Co-Lab sessions are recorded — that's how tutorials get made. Separate consent, and there's always a no-filming area for anyone who'd rather not appear. Taking part is never conditional on being on camera.
Read the session consent →Children on set
A parent stays with their child the whole time and supervises them. We're responsible for the space, not for the child. Filming stops the moment a child asks. Only a parent gives food or medication.
Our on-set rules →What we publish about you
A first name, age and country. Never a surname, address, school, uniform or location tag. Nothing else, ever, and no contact details.
Privacy notice →Changing your mind
Write to us and we stop using the work on anything new, and take it off channels we control. What's already printed, sold or built into a finished film can't be recalled — we'll tell you honestly what's out there.
Contact us →Members who take on a bigger role — running a session, developing a course, shooting for us — sign a short separate agreement for that work. We'll send it when it comes up; nothing is buried in the membership.
Questions people actually ask
Who owns what my child makes?
The work is assigned to SciNatured, the not-for-profit, so it can be published, exhibited and built into projects. Your child keeps the right to show their own work for personal, school and portfolio purposes. They can't sell it or license it, and neither can anyone else without SciNatured.
Do we get paid if our work is on a product?
No — and we say so plainly on the form. Instead a fixed share of product proceeds goes into the Creator Fund, which pays for awards, materials and places at sessions. Every product credits its author, and we send them a copy.
Is this only for kids?
No. It's a family co-lab — parents and grandparents take part as makers, not as chaperones. Several of the projects work better with two generations on them.
Can we join without being filmed?
Yes. Leave the filming box blank, and at in-person sessions sit in the no-filming area. It changes nothing about what you can work on.
Is membership per child?
Per family. Bring whoever wants to work on it.
What if we join and it isn't for us?
Write to us within the first month and we'll refund it. After that the membership runs to the end of its year and doesn't auto-renew without asking you.