The Children’s Discovery Museum will celebrate the grand opening of its new second-floor exhibit, "From Farm to a Health Me," on April 9.
Along with additional donations, the McLean County Farm Bureau pledged $1 million for renovations of the new exhibit. It replaces the “AgMazing” exhibit that opened in 2006.
On Monday, the museum in Uptown opened the exhibit early for a member preview event.
Joe Falcinelli of Normal and his 4-year-old daughter Frankie go to the museum once a week. Since the exhibit area closed in January, the family put a flyer on their fridge and counted down the days until the reopening.
“I really like the new technology they added, there’s lots of new screens and the little drone thing, and there’s lots of really cool interactive things that the kids can play with,” he said.
Frankie’s favorite was the grocery store.
“She filled one bag up and she’d go, ‘OK, now we got to do another one,” Falcinelli said. “So, it’s really fun for her to be able to see and interact with those objects, get to know all about it, it’s really cool.”
Falcinelli said his family enjoys learning as parents — on top of what their children learn.
“I think it’s a great way for both parents to learn about their kids and what they like and also for the kids to find out new things and to learn new things on their own,” he said.
Libby Torbeck of Normal and her son, David, 2, love to walk to the museum in good weather.
She called it a “a terrific resource, there’s new things for me and David to talk about. What’s an ambulance? Let’s talk about that. What’s pollination? Let’s talk about that.”
Torbeck said her son enjoys two things: Trucks and pretend play.
“I think the food truck is where he’s headed right now,” she said. “We love trucks of all kinds, we love pretend play and kitchen play, so putting pretend kitchen in a truck is kind of the big win.”
Torbeck said she knew from her career as an educator that children learn best when play and education are offered at the same time, so she is grateful to have that opportunity available for her child.
“He’s just having a great time, and then all of a sudden in three weeks, he’ll tell me some random fact about grain drying or pollinators and I’ll know he picked that up at the museum,” she said.
Agriculture and Farming education for kids
One purpose of the agriculture-focused exhibit is to teach children about the world around them, and the farms and crops covering Central Illinois.
Jessica Duke of Bloomington also enjoyed that aspect with her kids Lucy, 2, and Reggie, 1, saying she wants them to learn about the environment in their new home.
“We moved here from Tennessee and so the Midwestern farm agriculture is new to me as well, so it’s been fun to learn about it myself and then also teach them,” she said. “[Lucy] has been really liking the grain where you can use the balls to see all the ways it goes and feed the cow.”
The family also enjoyed the oversized honeycomb structure that teaches about pollinators in the springtime.
“I’m telling her that bees help the plants grow, just as we’re outside on our walks and so then to come here and that’s reinforcing it here,” she said. “Just having so much play to do here is how they are learning and then just picking up little tidbits here and there as she asks questions about it.”
Learning about Central Illinois agriculture is the goal, said museum executive director Beth Whisman.
“We want to make sure out museum reflects our community,” she said. “… and when kids look out on the horizon and they see a wind turbine or they see a corn field or soybean field, our museum is going to help them understand what they’re looking at and help them understand their place in the world.”
Whisman said several parties recognized the need to update the prior exhibit, adding when the museum explored ideas for renovation, the agriculture community stepped to help craft the content.
“As professional museum people, that is important for us, that the public knows that you can trust what you’re learning in the space, it’s been vetted,” said Whisman. “And what I loved about the process was how many farmers were really involved in this, individual farmers and people who were educators.”
Whisman said staff from Illinois State University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Heartland Community College collaborated on the exhibit as well.
The renovations had a latent function for children’s education, too. Whisman said kids wanted to know about their favorite features, but they had to wait and see.
“…But that’s part of learning as a child as well, is anticipation, being patient, waiting your turn, understanding that not everything is going to snap and happen,” she said. “The truth is, kids were asking and they were anxious to see it again, and we were helping them along the way by explaining the process and their caregivers were the same way.”
Now, the museum will move to reimagine its first and third-floor exhibits — while keeping an eye on their core tenants of the trades and fine arts.
The grand opening and ribbon cutting for the new second-floor exhibit will be at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 9.
