San Antonio, TX, USA (June 8, 2015) — The newest children’s museum in the coutnry, The DoSeum. Opened June 6 adjacent to San Antonio’s renowned Brackenridge Park, The DoSeum presents countless opportunities for children to discover, explore, create and learn. With world-class exhibits and sustainable, thoughtful architecture, it is poised to be one of the leading children’s museums in the nation. The museum will educate by using every inch of its 104,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space. Nearly 60 percent of The DoSeum’s exhibits focus on concepts in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), while others emphasize literacy and the creative arts to create a diverse learning experience.
The DoSeum celebrated with a ribbon cutting on Saturday morning and a daylong family-friendly festival. Community leaders including Mayor Ivy Taylor, Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert and San Antonio City Councilman Alan E. Warrick, II gathered for the opening ceremony, which included a poem reflecting on the beauty of blossoming young minds read by San Antonio’s Poet Laureate Laurie Anne Guerrero. The ceremony culminated with a ribbon cutting performed by a Rube Goldberg-inspired sculpture created by local artist Regan Johns. The art piece incorporated letters from the sign of the downtown location of the San Antonio Children’s Museum, and used a chain reaction of simple tasks to cut the ribbon.
At The DoSeum, kids will be able to use their inner creativity and curiosity to feed their appetite for learning as they choose from an impressive menu of exhibits including a state-of-the-art robot named Baxter, a spy academy filled with math challenges, an interactive puppet parade, a musical staircase, a Children’s Stream and significant outdoor space with plenty of water features, shade, and 26-foot-tall, ADA-accessible treehouse. Indoors, guests can explore six main exhibit areas: Sensations Studio, Explore, Innovation Station, Imagine It, Little Town and Spy Academy.
Sensations Studio: Exploring physics with light and sound helps children understand what they see and hear around them. An art and science jam session, Sensations Studio encourages children to use everyday tools and objects to observe light and sound phenomena, play with light and mirrors and experiment with color.
Explore: With maps, models and shifting scales, Explore encourages children to sharpen their 21st-century discovery skills by exploring how we live and work together and connect to other parts of the globe. In Explore, visitors will be encouraged to interact and collaborate to approach real-world problems.
Innovation Station: At Innovation Station, children have the space – physically and mentally – to imagine, create and build. They use real tools to solve engineering challenges by designing and building bridges, programming robots, floating objects in columns of air and exploring the mysteries of magnets.
Spy Academy: When children enter Spy Academy, they’re transported into an exciting world where math rules. As “recruits” they’ll be tasked with solving their way through missions to become master spies by making and breaking codes, applying logic and deductive reasoning and using their spatial and geometry skills to help fellow spies out of tricky situations.
Imagine It!: In this exhibit, children are free to let their imaginations soar, writing, recording and animating their own stories with stop-motion animation tools. With costumes, sensory surprises and a playful landscape, Imagine It! encourages creative thinking, supports language development and fosters a love of reading and writing.
Little Town: A townscape for children as young as six months to five years of age, Little Town includes a kid-sized bank, grocery store and food truck. Children will build realworld connections, improve motor skills and practice social skills in a town that is just their size. Little Town is also home to some of the most beloved exhibits from the San Antonio Children’s Museum, refurbished and re-imagined for the new facility
“Today when we open our doors, The DoSeum will be one of the most beautiful, exciting and interactive children’s museums in the entire United States,” said Vanessa Lacoss Hurd, CEO of The DoSeum. “It will be a place where children tap their inner creativity and curiosity, and where science, math, technology and art become a playground for their minds and bodies. Our hope is that The DoSeum will spark a genuine zeal for learning that they will take with them through childhood and beyond.”
The DoSeum is expected to attract over 400,000 visitors annually to experience its innovative approach to education, and is another influential addition to San Antonio’s cultural corridor along Broadway that includes the Pearl Brewery complex, Witte Museum, Brackenridge Park, the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, the San Antonio Zoo and the San Antonio Museum of Art and the McNay Art Museum.
“Children’s museums can be powerful players in a community’s learning landscape,” said Laura Huerta Migus, executive director of the Association of Children’s Museums. “The DoSeum will certainly confirm San Antonio’s place in the global network of cities striving to create civic environments for healthy children, empowered parents, and vibrant workforces,” she added.
