Open 7 days a week, 10 AM to 6 PM  ·  5093 E. Remus Rd., Mt. Pleasant, MI  ·  (989) 317-3221
Our learning-through-play plan

Play is not a break from learning.
Play is the learning.

Every water table, block tower, and pretend grocery store at the Discovery Museum is built on decades of research about how young brains actually grow. Here's the science behind the fun.

Read the Learning Through Play Plan (PDF)
"The Power of Play" research summary, Dr. Rachel White, Minnesota Children's Museum
A delighted child splashing at the Water Works exhibit
"Play is not frivolous: it enhances brain structure and function and promotes executive function… which allow us to pursue goals and ignore distractions." American Academy of Pediatrics, "The Power of Play" clinical report (Yogman et al., Pediatrics, 2018)
What the research says

Six big reasons play matters

Play builds the brain's command center

Executive function, attention, working memory, self-control, develops fastest in early childhood, and playful back-and-forth experiences are how children practice those skills. These capacities predict school success better than early academics alone.

Harvard Center on the Developing Child

Pediatricians prescribe it

The American Academy of Pediatrics formally recommends play as essential to healthy development, so strongly that it encourages doctors to write "prescriptions for play" at well-child visits. Play also buffers toxic stress and supports caregiver-child bonds.

AAP Clinical Report, Pediatrics (2018)

Pretend play stretches thinking

When a child runs a pretend market or delivers pretend mail, they practice language, negotiation, symbolic thinking, and perspective-taking. Developmental psychologists since Vygotsky have observed that in imaginative play, children perform "a head taller" than their everyday selves.

Vygotsky, Mind in Society (1978)

Most learning happens outside school

The National Research Council found that informal environments, museums, libraries, everyday exploration, are powerful engines of science learning, sparking interest and identity ("I'm someone who figures things out!") that classrooms build on.

NRC, Learning Science in Informal Environments (2009)

Play is a right, not a luxury

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes every child's right to play (Article 31). Children's museums help make that right real, especially through access programs like Museums for All discounted admission.

UN CRC, Article 31 · Museums for All / IMLS

Grown-ups learn here too

Hands-on museums are one of the few places designed for adults and children to explore together. That "serve and return" interaction, a child shows, a caregiver responds, is one of the most reliable builders of healthy brain architecture we know of.

Harvard Center on the Developing Child
A young builder hard at work at the woodworking bench

Rural kids deserve it

Mid-Michigan families shouldn't have to drive hours for hands-on learning, the LOCAL reciprocal network brings the whole state closer.

Access for every family

Museums for All admission ($4 with EBT/WIC), free Discovery Days, and affordable memberships keep the doors open to everyone.

Built for the early years

Ages 0–8 are when brain architecture forms fastest, exactly the years the Discovery Museum serves best.

Community-powered

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit sustained by local sponsors, volunteers, and members, by mid-Michigan, for mid-Michigan.

Come see the research in action

Every day is a field day here. Open 7 days a week, 10 AM to 6 PM.

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