San Diego Children's Discovery Museum

Programs: Children's museum activities:we believe children are natural scientists, artists, and explorers. All children benefit from creative hands-on experiences that allow them to develop a life-long love of learning, a sense of global awareness, and the cognitive and social skills to succeed in school and beyond. Research shows that children who attend museums are more likely to achieve academic success, connect with their community, and have positive parent interaction. The ability of children to actively explore their environment has been linked to an increase in vocabulary and communication skills, an understanding of people's behavior, and creative problem solving. Since moving into our new museum building in 2011, attendance increased from 15,000 people (in our old location), to a projected 60,000 in 2014. Our museum provides innovative exhibits and interactive programs that cultivate needed excitement and curiosity. With help from community partners and supporters, we ensure every child has access to the museum through field trip scholarships for low-income schools, free memberships for underserved families, financial assistance for military and veteran families, and collaborations with numerous social service agencies. In the past year we gave over 500 memberships to local escondido children and their families, and thousands of complementary passes throughout san diego county through our partnerships with local agencies. We also provide free admission to the public through a collaboration with escondido library and escondido city neighborhood services. During the summer months over 4,000 active-duty military and veteran families recevied free admission to the museum, and this program is now expanding to offer free admission to the winter and spring holiday months of the year. In the first three years in our new facility our time and energy was spent expanding our on-site museum exhibits and ensuring all families have access through the previously mentioned programs. Our efforts are now focused on developing complimentary programs that guide children through educational experiences using our existing interactive exhibits. All exhibits and programs at our museum are hands-on so children can truly explore their environment and discover their surroundings. Almost all of our exhibits are designed in-house by a highly qualified and capable staff, through consultations with child development experts, museum professionals, and educators. Because all of our science, art, and world culture programs align with california's common core curriculum standards, children can practice what they are learning in school at the museum. Sdcdm is a place where educators and parents can see the practical application of knowledge learned in classes, and children will better understand the world around them. Our museum presents opportunities for exploration of real-life topics, such as water conservation, history, science and engineering, arts, theater, and music. Given the opportunity to experience the world through play and exploration, children begin to make important connections to their environment, encouraging them to take ownership of their lives and their world. These important interactive experiences are a crucial step in the education process, allowing children to make concrete connections with the information they are learning. Current science exhibits at the museum include water wise with water and watershed interactive tables (featuring programs on water conservation, the watershed, and water issues), children's discovery garden (featuring programs on sustainability, gardening, and urban homesteading), magnification station (featuring video microscope, specimens, and classroom microscopes), wind tunnels, magnetic ball wall, light tables, and outdoor building and engineering activities. Programmatically, our science curricula include environmental science, earth science, and physical science, with workshops such as water conservation, nature science, garden science, native california, nature explorer, and raptors. Current art exhibits and programs include our imagination stage, puppet theater, musical instruments, mask-making, and other daily artistic programs. Our world cultures exhibits include our explorer discovery sailboat, toddler tidepool (a safe, secure area designed for our youngest visitors), and our kids global village. One of our new upcoming world culture exhibits is base camp where children become young archaeologists, paleontologists, and geologists as they learn about people, places, and ecologies of the past. In the summer of 2014 we acquired a new cargo van to launch our mobile children's museum program in the 2014-2015 school year. We design and build many of our exhibits to be modular and mobile, allowing us to take components of our exhibits along with programs into the community through our mobile outreach programs. By bringing our exhibits to schools, we are able to reach many more children while also reducing the cost and logistics of bringing children to our museum. We are continually developing curricula for school programs to educate children about various subjects connected to our exhibits. Our first pilot mobile outreach program is water wise, a dynamic exhibit emphasizing regional issues and experiential learning about our local watershed, water reclamation, conservation, solar power, weather, and aquaponics. We have many more mobile exhibits planned, which we will bring into the community with our mobile children's museum.