Imagine a Children’s Discovery Museum

To the editor:
    Each child is an inventor, a teacher, a scientist, an artist. Children are naturally curious about the world, wanting to know how and why and where. If you’ve recently spent time with a three-year old, you know this from personal experience. It is through the process of hands-on interactive discovery and play that children are able to identify what their needs are, and to communicate these needs to teachers, parents, and peers. By asking questions, children learn more effectively, increasing their self-esteem and “learning-to-learn” skills.     It is not easy to create a place where a child can learn without limits. Each child is unique. While some respond to the written word, others delight in sounds, or in the order and structure of mathematics. It is theorized that there are at least seven different intelligences, or learning styles. The child, who learns best kinesthetically, using his or her body to explore the world, may not gain insight from written lessons. And the child who can read and remember may not understand that which is spoken. These are just a few of the invaluable lessons that will be addressed by the Caribou Children’s Discovery Museum’s unstructured learning environment.
    Communities that embrace a sense of responsibility toward their children’s futures must seek to create safe places where they can happily play and use their imaginations —places in which there are few limitations and endless possibilities. Even more valuable is a place where children and adults can play together. Studies constantly confirm that play is an important bonding experience for families, and that play involving parents or other significant adults enhance the learning process. Creating such a place for learning and discovering through play is Caribou Children’s Discovery Museum’s primary mission. Howard Gardner, the Harvard psychologist who developed the theory of multiple intelligences, describes children’s museums as “playgrounds for the mind.” It is here that children learn most creatively, trying out new ideas and ways of learning, seeking to understand the world in their own unique way. CCDM will not teach kids what to think, it will teach them how to think.
    The Museum will be a place where visitors of all ages, ethnicities, social groups, cultures, and religions come together to learn about and from each other. It will be a comfortable, safe, and enjoyable place where people come to be surprised and to understand and learn through a variety of hands-on exhibits, activities, and programs and acquire a desire for lifelong learning.
    The Caribou Children’s Discovery Museum is dedicated to enriching the lives of all children by fostering a love of learning and enabling children to realize their highest potential. Visitors of all ages will be encouraged to play together, learn, imagine and create. The 8,400 sq. ft. Museum will offer programs that emphasize meaningful, real-life problem solving, individualized teaching/learning, creativity, imagination and a balanced program aimed at meeting children’s broad developmental needs. CCDM, which will be reminiscent of the early days of northern Maine, will have an interactive town complete with a supermarket, bank, hospital and a town square. The Tot Spot exhibit will have brightly colored toys, games and discovery exhibits designed for toddlers.
    Interactive discovery and learning centers throughout the new museum will provide opportunities to explore interest in culture, history, art, math, health, nature, the environment, and diverse science related fields. Our futures are brighter when we invest in our children.
    Help create a brighter future by investing in the Caribou Children’s Discovery Museum. The children’s discovery center and its programs will be a place that will benefit all of Aroostook County. We will continuously seek new opportunities to serve all communities and make everyone proud to have this wonderful resource in our area.
    For more information, or if you want to donate to this great project, write us at: CCDM, P.O. Box 487, Caribou, ME 04736, e-mail at contact@cariboudiscovery.org. or check out our Web page at www.cariboudiscovery.org.