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Discovery Center Sets Spring Break Attendance Record

Discovery Center Sets Spring Break Attendance Record

Topeka, Kansas, March 23, 2023 – The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center announced today the museum set a spring break attendance record last week, with a total of 7,461 visitors from March 10 to March 18, 2023.

A number of factors contributed to the record-breaking attendance. The museum is currently hosting the nationally-traveling Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit. Created by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in partnership with Fred Rogers Productions, this exhibit is based on the award-winning PBS KIDS television series that follows the adventures of 4-year-old Daniel Tiger and his friends. The exhibit is locally sponsored by the Topeka Lodging Association. More than a third of spring break visitors lived outside of Shawnee County.

In addition to a spring break record, the museum saw the single largest day attendance with 1,192 visitors on March 16. March 16 was a free admission night, meaning after 5 p.m., 386 visitors were able to play free of charge with admission sponsored by Evergy. The museum offers free nights monthly on the third Thursday of each month, sponsored by generous local businesses. This is the fourth free admission night Evergy has hosted in the past 12 months, and the organization plans to sponsor two more in the coming year.

Spring break programming included seven different science programs over the course of the week to help children experience engineering, chemistry, art, and math. The museum also welcomed families to a Sensory Friendly Sunday morning in which children with autism or special sensory needs could come to the museum for a calm, sensory-friendly playtime just for them at no charge.

The nonprofit children’s museum opened in 2011, and in the past twelve years has grown significantly, gaining prominence as a regional tourist attraction and community anchor for families. The museum has hosted seven major traveling exhibitions. Access is a major part of the museum’s work and more than 1 in 3 admissions are free or subsidized. Thousands more children are served in community outreach events. Since opening, the museum has hosted more than 800,000 visitors from all 50 states and 23 countries. President/CEO Dené Mosier has led the museum since 2015.

 

 

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In the News: Discovery Center Announces Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit Among 2023 Exhibit Lineup

In the News: Discovery Center Announces Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit Among 2023 Exhibit Lineup

The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center, Topeka’s nonprofit children’s museum, will present the nationally traveling “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit” from January 27 to May 14, 2023. Created by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in partnership with Fred Rogers Productions, this exhibit is based on the award-winning PBS KIDS television series that follows the adventures of 4-year-old Daniel Tiger and his friends.

This exhibit is part of an unprecedented special exhibit schedule for the Discovery Center. Following “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit”, the museum will open “Camp Kansas”, a locally-constructed exhibit promoting outdoor adventures in the sunflower state, from June 9 to August 27. The nationally traveling “Curious George: Let’s Get Curious” exhibit will finish out the year from September 15, 2023 to January 7, 2024.

All three special exhibits, in addition to the museum’s 15,000 square feet of permanent exhibits and 4.5 acre certified Nature Explore Outdoor Classroom, are available at the cost of regular admission. The museum is committed to access for all families, and will continue to offer monthly free nights, sliding scale field trip rates, and Museums for All admission for families receiving TANF or WIC. The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library will continue their program of free museum passes available for check out to anyone with a library card.

Special exhibits like “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit” have a strong history of drawing tourism to Shawnee County, generating as much as a 50 percent increase in out-of-state visitors at the museum and driving local spending. Last spring’s Dino Days exhibit set attendance records for the museum.

“Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: A Grr-ific Exhibit” brings to life the themes presented in the PBS series such as community, communication and emotions, which enables young children to understand their feelings and those of their neighbors. Exhibit elements include an Imagination Stage, where kids can put on costumes of series characters and step onto the stage to act; The Music Shop, where children can express themselves through unusual instruments; The Post Office, where they can sort, deliver and receive packages and letters; and a Thank You Tree, where visitors can write or draw thank-you notes and put them on the tree.

“Daniel speaks directly to children, and he is their age,” notes Paul Siefken, Vice President, Broadcast and Digital Media with The Fred Rogers Company. “Because of that, they see him as their friend, and he goes through a lot of the challenges that they face, whether it’s dealing with mad feelings or learning how to share.”

Along with the emotional lessons gleaned in the Neighborhood, visitors can:

  • Transform into to a favorite character with masks and costumes
  • Compose a song or play along with one-of-a-kind instruments
  • Create stories through the Movable Character Mural
  • Step inside the Clock Factory to play with a variety of clocks
  • Identify spots in one’s own neighborhood on the interactive world map
  • Cozy up with a good book in O the Owl’s Reading Nest and
  • Stroll with a Trolley along the path, and ring the bell upon arrival!

Community for Kids helps families heal, start conversations after recent tragedies

Families at the Discovery Center were encouraged to make art or write cards to the children of Texas, which will be delivered to children’s museums in the state to show solidarity.

More than 230 people attended Community for Kids on Wednesday evening at the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center for a night of healing and conversation after the recent events in Uvalde, Texas, gripped the nation with grief.

The event, which ran for three hours, included free admission, resources and opportunities to heal as a community in a safe, peaceful environment. 

The Discovery Center was blown away by the love and support shown by the local community, who attended Community for Kids on only four hours’ notice. Word of the event quickly spread over Facebook and other social media platforms and by traditional media.

“These horrific events weigh heavily on us as an organization whose purpose is to bring joy and enrich the lives of children and their families,” said Dene’ Mosier, Discovery Center President and CEO. “No child should feel unsafe, whether at school, in public places or at home. It is our duty as a community to make sure our children are given a peaceful environment in which to heal and connect to community resources.”

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2021 Annual Report now available!

The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center’s 2021 Annual Report is now available online!

The museum celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2021, and the annual report is a great showcase of how much the Discovery Center has grown in that time. Since opening in 2011, the museum has hosted more than 770,000 visitors from all 50 states and 23 countries, as well as five major traveling exhibitions.

The Discovery Center focuses on four pillars of play to deliver serious fun for its guests while also providing educational resources and community outreach. They include being advocates for children, being an educational laboratory, activating play outside of our walls and being a sustainable nonprofit. 

The Discovery Center also has an economic impact on the community that is immeasurable, providing both a community anchor and a tourist attraction. The museum improves the quality of life in Topeka and helps engage the next generation of dreamers and leaders in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art and math through STEAM play.

The museum’s 2021 financial information also is available in the report.

 

Download the 2021 Annual Report

 

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Discovery Center sets single-day attendance record

The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center announced today the museum set a single-day attendance record on Thursday, March 17, 2022, with a total of 1,152 visitors. The previous single-day attendance record was set on June 20, 2019. 

A number of factors contributed to the record-breaking attendance. The museum is one of the three major Topeka Dino Days venues and is hosting the Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies exhibition from Feb. 24 to May 30, 2022. Tiny Titans is sponsored by Visit Topeka and the Topeka Lodging Association and has been a major attraction for regional spring break visitors. Tiny Titans is a hands-on exhibition offering an array of authentic dinosaur eggs and nests collected from all across the globe, in addition to interactive play experiences. 

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Learning to teach: Future educators from TCALC volunteer time at Discovery Center

From left, Ainsley Schimmel, a junior at Topeka West, creates a cat using a Rigamajig Basic Builder kit as Topeka West senior Emma Banka-Bayless watches her. The students are part of a group of volunteers from the Topeka Center for Advanced Learning and Careers, better known as TCALC.

A tightly knit group of high school students from Topeka Unified School District 501 have been volunteering their time and energy to make the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center a better place for its young visitors, as well as honing their skills as potential future educators.

These six student leaders are members of the Topeka Center for Advanced Learning and Careers, or TCALC — an innovative program created through business partnerships to help teach youths about different career pathways they are interested in following. TCALC has several different professional pathways it offers to students, with this group representing the teaching pathway.

“These students are juniors and seniors in high school,” said Diane Kimsey, elementary math consulting teacher for TCALC. “They represent Highland Park, Topeka High and Topeka West. We meet every day for half a day and they all think that perhaps they would like to be teachers eventually. We have those who want to work with elementary, we have middle school dreamers and we have high school dreamers.”

So far in the four weeks they have been volunteering at the Discovery Center, the students have helped clean up the Discovery Center’s outdoor nature area, as well as creating educational materials for children. Last Wednesday, March 2, they taught young visitors of the Discovery Center about engineering using Rigamajig Basic Builder kits.

“Covid has kept us from being in the classrooms as much as we’d like to be, but at the same time we’ve had incredible opportunities,” Kimsey said. “For the last month, we’ve been here (at the Discovery Center) on Wednesdays, and we’re looking forward to this partnership to continue through the rest of the school year.”

The students came to the Discovery Center after contacting Visit Topeka to support Topeka Dino Days, a communitywide dinosaur exhibition. Staff at Visit Topeka connected the educators to the Discovery Center to support the museum as they opened the traveling Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies.

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KU architecture students design, construct New Years Pavilion for Discovery Center

Students from the University of Kansas joined the Lei family for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, Feb. 1, as the Discovery Center unveiled its New Years Pavilion.

The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center unveiled a new feature this month.

Thanks to the generosity of the Lei family, and the hard work of some talented college students, the Discovery Center was able to replace its old pavilion with a New Years Pavilion that blends a beautiful yet informative design to help people of all ages learn about East Asian culture. A pavilion previously on the site was dedicated in 2013 with support from family and friends in memory of Garbo Lei. The new pavilion will enhance the existing Garbo Lei Family Treasure Garden. 

Eighteen students from the University of Kansas School of Architecture worked together to design and build the pavilion, which included utilizing design elements that the donor had requested. The structure was built with wood, steel and terra cotta materials.

“A good detail we did is the center is the Chinese lunar calendar, so it’s got all twelve animals on it that (each) represent one year,” said Ashlyn Reece, a third-year student at the architecture school.

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New Play Space in Marysville, Kansas, offers some serious fun close to home

Photographs courtesy of JoAnn Shum/The Marysville Advocate

A recent Kansas Children’s Discovery Center project is helping kids in a rural community find ways to have some serious fun close to home, thanks to generous funding from the Children’s Cabinet.

The Discovery Center this year used a grant from the Children’s Cabinet to plan and construct an educational play area in Marysville – the county seat of Marshall County – called Discovery Play Space, with Marshall County Partnership 4 Growth partnering to help inform citizens of the project. It is located at Seventh and Elm Street in Marysville, along the Seventh Street Corridor.

The Discovery Play Space opened to the public on Nov. 17, and is free and accessible to all families. It is part of the Discovery Center’s goal of becoming a more regional resource for children and families as it expands its outreach beyond Topeka’s city limits.

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In the News: New Water Experience Creates In-Depth Learning

New Water Experience Creates In-Depth Learning

The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center, Topeka’s nonprofit children’s museum, officially opened a new outdoor water exhibit today. The new feature is designed to encourage water exploration and hands-on learning with a series of natural pools and fountains. Built on the site of the former pond, the exhibit has turned the water experience from a place where children could observe to one designed to encourage interaction. The exhibit was sponsored by Evergy, whose financial and volunteer support have made the project possible. The feature was designed and installed by Adam Tucker of local Fantasy Falls and Water Gardens.

The new Discovery Pond is the epitome of STEAM based learning, providing incredible nature-based play experiences, and serving as a visual and educational anchor of the outdoor area. Children exploring natural waterscapes are learning STEAM concepts alongside principles of our most critical natural resource. Water play inspires children’s natural scientific curiosity as they experiment with force, pressure, fluidity and buoyancy. When a child builds a small dam with natural elements, tests a boat, or runs fingers through a running stream, they feel scientific principles at work.

The Discovery Center water experience is unique in that it encourages play in a natural water source. Children can see a realistic stream at work, and the impact of textures, native plants and organisms on the environment. These experiences stimulate questions about the water cycle, environmental concerns, and the value of water in the ecosystem. This differs significantly from the experience children have at a water park or swimming pool.

The Discovery Pond is just one part of the 4.5 outdoor acres adventure area at the museum, featuring a pirate ship, treehouse, music garden, stream, bikes, trikes, wagons, challenge courses, a child-friendly zipline, giant sandbox, and more.

The space has earned national recognition as a Certified Nature Explore Classroom from the Nature Explore program. Nature Explore Outdoor Classrooms offer interactive elements such as musical instruments made of natural materials, garden and pathway areas, and natural materials for building and creating art. Open green space allows families to try a disc golf game, enjoy a picnic or relax by a steam. Paved and natural paths wind through shaded woods, revealing hidden tunnels and exciting discoveries, perfect for fueling the imaginations of little explorers.

Media Coverage of this Story

Take off your shoes for the latest Kansas Children's Discovery Center exhibit

Tim Hrenchir, Topeka Capital-Journal

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We officially opened our new outdoor water exhibit today!

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