Minnesota Children’s Museum Arts and Access Programs
Arts and Cultural Heritage funding will allow us to pursue three major initiatives between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016: 1) Offer special exhibits and programs promoting creative and critical thinking in our main museum in St. Paul; 2) A Pop-up satellite Museum at the Mall of America featuring four changing exhibits to attract thousands of new visitors; and 3) Changing exhibits and access at Minnesota Children’s Museum-Rochester to ensure inclusive family experiences for the Rochester community. Recipient:
$950,000 each year is for arts and cultural heritage grants to children's museums.Of this amount, $500,000 each year is for the Minnesota Children's Museum, including the Minnesota Children's Museum in Rochester; $150,000 each year is for the Duluth Children's Museum; $150,000 each year is for the Grand Rapids Children's Museum; and $150,000 each year is for the Southern Minnesota Children's Museum.
Exhibits at Minnesota Children’s Museum — St Paul1. Children and families will engage in exhibits and programs that build critical and creative thinking skills.2. These experiences will reach more than 129,000 people.Pop-Up Museum at Mall of America3. Bring playful learning experiences to a new audience, reaching an estimated 90,000 people.4. Minnesota Children's Museum will test the viability of a second Metro area site as a way to increase reach and build audiences.Minnesota Children’s Museum-Rochester5. MCM-R will engage adults and children in Southern Minnesota in exhibits and programs that build creative and critical thinking skills.6. These experiences will reach 30,000 people, 1,500 through the Play for All access program.
The following are important incomes of the funding from the State of Minnesota:Exhibits at Minnesota Children’s Museum — St PaulWith funding from the State of Minnesota, the Museum was able to present the visiting exhibit, tiff presents digiPlaySpace™. This exhibit, developed outside of Minnesota, was chosen for the unique, high quality STEM learning experiences and their relational focus on creative and critical thinking. Additionally, as the downtown St. Paul location has been going through a significant expansion and renovation, we needed to select an exhibit with an adaptable layout so that we could program it into our evolving space. digiPlaySpace not only fulfilled our need for that type of flexibility, but it possessed a level of STEM-related content that would not have been available to us without State funding.Pop-Up Museum at Mall of AmericaIn the interest of providing ongoing play experiences during construction, the Museum chose to open a satellite location at the Mall of America due to its central location within the metro area and the potential to reach new audiences that visit the mall and may not venture to the Saint Paul location. With an official launch date of September 26, 2015, the Museum successfully opened this new satellite location and welcomed 70,809 visitors. In the first year of operating the MOA location, audiences enjoyed four family-favorite exhibits including Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice™, Adventures with Clifford the Big Red Dog ™ and Ball-orama™.Minnesota Children's Museum of RochesterIn addition to hosting 10 visiting exhibits and welcoming over 31,000 visitors under the new leadership of Heidi Mestad, our Rochester satellite activated strategies to successfully gain new funding partners to support ongoing programs, including the Bremer Bank Free First Sunday program.