Port Discovery Children’s Museum will develop a new multisensory exhibit encouraging youth to explore movement and joy after the museum received a $2.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
Titled “Joyful Steps,” the exhibit will include interactive installations, music, movement, dance, light, and sensory play opportunities.
Port Discovery is one of 23 U.S. children’s museums receiving support through the Lilly Endowment’s “Fostering Character Through Children’s Museums” initiative, which helps museums develop new or expand existing efforts to help youth build positive character traits.
“Children’s museums are places where children of all ages can learn informally, discovering new ideas through play, multi-sensory experiences and self-expression,” said Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment’s Vice President for Education and Youth Programs, in a statement. “We are excited to see how the museums funded through this initiative will help children and their families to explore various character traits and reflect together on ways these traits can be practiced and strengthened.”
Artists, educators, early childhood experts, and community members are co-designing Joyful Steps. The exhibit will comprise three main areas.
The first area, called “Reflection Park,” will showcase activities such as meditation, yoga, dance, flash mobs, drumming, and more as expressions of mindfulness and connection.
“The Rowhouses of Glimmer Street” will be inspired by Baltimore rowhouses and highlight different character traits. Visitors will be able to climb stoop steps and enter each house, where they will find “imaginative environments” and “hidden treasures,” according to museum officials.
The exhibit will end at “Awesome Alley,” where visitors can engage in physical activities and reflection. A story booth will allow visitors to record their experiences of learning about character and think about how they may apply those lessons in their daily lives.
Joyful Steps is one part of Port Discovery’s ongoing efforts to reimagine the role that a children’s museum plays in its community.
“Children’s museums are no longer the hidden gems of a city — they are being recognized, finally, as essential community assets,” said Carter Polakoff, president and CEO of Port Discovery.
Port Discovery will also debut two new permanent exhibitions in fall 2025.
One will be a space-themed STEAM exhibit called “Galactic Builders,” featuring parachute testing, rover building, and rocket launching.
The other will be a low sensory exhibit called “SKIES,” which will showcase the sky’s changes from sunrise to sunset, as well as the planet’s cloudscape, with quiet reading nooks, a soft resting zone, and a space to build pillow/blanket forts.
“This is a story about momentum,” Polakoff said. “And about national foundations and visionary donors seeing the power of our mission, the value of the museum as an educational learning lab, and saying yes. About a museum embracing its role as a training ground for caregivers and educators, a bridge to university partnerships, and a force for community-based learning.”
