Discovery Museum, Inc.

Discovery Museum is dedicated to making the Museum welcoming for all families, regardless of the challenges they face. We have developed award-winning Especially for Me programming for families with special needs, making museum visits easier and more rewarding. Since 2010, we have offered free events for families with children on the autism spectrum, who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are visually impaired, providing private access to the museums, trained facilitators, music therapy, and ASL interpreters. We served more than 1,700 people through Especially for Me in 2016. The Discovery Museums is committed to creating environments that follow universal design principles. Discovery Woods, our new outdoor playspace and treehouse, is fully-accessible, allowing children and adults of all abilities to explore the outdoors. In 2018, we opened our renovated and expanded, fully-accessible museum buidling.

Discovery Science School Programs provide educational enrichment to area schoolchildren through both in-class workshops and on-site field trips. Through Traveling Science Workshops, Discovery Museum educators travel directly to schools, eliminating the financial hardship of busing. TSW brings inquiry-based discovery and science experiences directly to classrooms via programs adhering to state-mandated science curriculum standards. They also serve as training models, showing classroom teachers how to develop hands-on activities that engage and inform students. Leave-behind teacher guides further extend the enrichment possibilities. Discovery Field Trips offer engaging interactions with our exhibits, reinforcing key scientific concepts and generating enthusiasm for continued learning. As some families are unable to visit museums, due to financial, time, or other constraints, school field trips are many children’s only exposure to museums.

Studies show that active outdoor play has a positive impact on children’s activity level, concentration, and creativity. Our goal is to support kids being successful, active, healthy learners. There are many facets to the physical and mental health issues facing children today, but one of the most effective solutions is also one of the simplest: send them outside to play! Building on the museums’ reputation as a safe place for indoor exploration, we have brought our engaging educational programming outside to provide the ‘bridge’ that some families need to embark on outdoor explorations. Our Backyard and Beyond programs draw families beyond the museum to Discovery Woods, by way of an accessible walkway to a large, whimsical treehouse, and a winding nature path. Program offerings include participating in nature playgroups, investigating changing weather patterns, learning about local flora and fauna, and guided and independent exploration of the adjacent conservation land.

Brain Building Together will be an early learning space opening in early 2018 in our expanded main building, designed in collaboration with a group of expert partners, and driven by current research on the connection between healthy brain development between the ages of 0 and 3 and playful yet purposeful learning experiences. The space will be unique among children’s museums in that the primary audience for the exhibit will be not the children themselves, but their parents. We will help parents learn how to observe their children in a way that makes learning visible and tangible. In particular, through this space, we want to engage parents in the development of skills that will help their children be successful in school—for example, social and emotional intelligence, the ability to sustain effort, and the demonstration of persistence. Special outreach will be made to parents who may be living in more stressful situations. A distinguished group of advisors will oversee the exhibit development and provide ongoing advice and support.