Northeast Region
States in this Region: CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT
Discovery Center at the Museum of Science: The Discovery Center is a hands-on learning center designed for children (birth to age eight) and their grown-ups. The Discovery Center provides concrete experiences with real objects and interactions with volunteer interpreters, through which visitors are encouraged to practice science process skills – to observe, classify, hypothesize and model – and engage in activities that encourage technological literacy – to ask, imagine, plan, create, test and improve. Biology, Geology, and Natural History activities are featured on one floor; Physical Science experiences on another; and a Children’s Gallery is specifically designed for children under age 5 (including an “Infant Area” for kids under 12 months of age and their caregivers). Fantasy environments throughout the exhibit encourage children to practice their emerging science skill in activities that encourage discovery through play. The Discovery Center serves adults in a unique way, by encouraging caregivers to closely observe their children as they explore, to talk with child development researchers who are conducting experiments in the exhibit, and to practice their own science process skills in order to develop an understanding of how children learn about science and engineering. In these ways, current research in child development informs both staff training and exhibit design, and has become an integral part of the Discovery Center experience. The Discovery Center designed and vetted the “Living Lab” model as an original educational concept, establishing its program in 2005.
Collaborating Labs: The Museum of Science's Living Laboratory collaborators have included more than 20 labs in Greater Boston since 2005.