Discover! Children’s Museum will be part of the United Learning Center under construction on North Pearl Street in Centralia. Discover! will be built and operated as a safe place for children and parents and grandparents and will clearly be focused on learning.
Across the nation, children’s museums provide children with the ability to engage with specific exhibits and learn. The emphasis is on the children using their brain and their hands to pretend to be veterinarians, as one example.
This is a powerful style of learning that makes a difference. We need to make a difference for this age group in our community as the WAKids Assessments done by all schools show that far too many of our children are simply not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. They start out behind. We will provide exhibits and an environment that strongly encourages the children and parents to “play” together and learn.
We operated a pilot a few years ago for eleven months. With zero marketing or advertising, that pilot attracted 15,000 visitors. We expect to attract even more than that to a permanent site. In other words, Discover! will not only be a learning center, but it will add to the activity level which leads to economic benefit.
The focus on early learning combined with the economic value has led to significant support from our elected officials at the city, county and state levels, with no one more steadfast in their support than state Rep. Peter Abbarno. That support indicates the importance these individuals place on education.
Our permanent focus will be childhood learning to strengthen subsequent academic performance and to strengthen our community.
Larry McGee
Discover! Children’s Museum
