Hello! My name is Jennifer Fischer and I am Visitor Services Manager here at the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute. Once or twice a week I get to spend the day working with our programs here at the Museum. That means I work booking and giving tours. I wanted to tell you about my favorite program at the Museum – Create a Soft Drink. The program is always an entertaining 2 hours and builds upon free enterprise education. We start out with a tour of the museum then head over to the class room where the kids, and sometimes adults, split into teams to become scientists, then marketing executives of sorts.  The kids get so excited about this part.

The students work together in the teams to create 3 soft drinks made from flavor syrups and carbonated water. Probably one of the most entertaining parts, hilarious usually, is the tasting of the creations if you dare. Each drink has three flavors. The participants create, then taste one at a time the three test drinks.  I always laugh at the expressions on everyone’s face. It’s hilarious. Sometimes I get asked to try the drinks. Some are pretty good. While others, well, I’ll let you use your imagination. The students come up with some pretty interesting combinations. When I’ve done this program with adults, the adults aren’t nearly as creative with their flavor mixtures as the kids.

After each team has created their three drinks, they then vote on their favorite of the three. The science part ends and then the marketing begins. They choose a name, then a slogan and logo. The artistic side of some of the kids always amazes me. Once all of that has been done, then the other entertaining phase happens. The participants create and present a skit, or mini commercial to try to sell their final product to the rest of the class. More often than not, we are all laughing as we leave to go enjoy our Dr Pepper floats from our old fashioned soda fountain.

The Create a Soft Drink program is always a great, fun filled two hours of learning and team building. If you are interested in, check our website for more information about it.