Lynn Meadows Discovery Center

Mission

The Lynn Meadows Discovery Center inspires children, families and communities through interactive educational experiences and exploration.

History

Today, more than 400 children's museums throughout the United States break the rules of traditional museums encouraging visitors to touch, talk, have fun and learn. In a children's museum, the audience rather than the objects are key. The exhibits are catalysts for questions, exploration and discovery and the entire experience is a playground for the mind. The Lynn Meadows Discovery Center is the first children's museum in Mississippi.

From its inception, The Lynn Meadows Discovery Center has been a community project. With initial funding in 1991 from Gulfport Junior Auxiliary, co-founders Rose Alman and Carole Lynn Meadows have led the team to make the dream a reality with the opening of the museum in May, 1998. The museum name honors the memory of Lynn Meadows, Carole Lynn and Joe Meadows' daughter, who died tragically in a car accident in 1984 while a student at Ole Miss. Located in the renovated Mississippi City Elementary School, constructed in 1915 and an architectural exhibition itself, Lynn Meadows Discovery Center offers 15,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space, six acres of outdoor play space including a tree house village, a woodsy cabin on a stream and meeting rooms for workshops as well as camps and birthday parties.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the MS Gulf Coast resulting in the "worst natural disaster in US history". The Lynn Meadows Discovery Center stood defiantly among the old live oaks, but the storm surge reduced the entire first floor of exhibitions, Artist Studio and staff office to rubble. The Education Building was destroyed, the pavilion was left a shell and the gymnasium multi-purpose spaces were flooded.

The first floor exhibits have been replaced, the office refurbished and repaired and the main museum building reopened on June 6, 2006. The Education Building was demolished and the Pavilion has been renovated and provides three multi purpose rooms. Phases II and III of the building project, with a $3 million budget, was completed with the opening of the WINGS Performing Arts and Education Center on April 23, 2009. Phase IV of the construction will include renovation of the gym into a performing arts center for youth.

September 2011, Lynn Meadows Discovery Center was the recipient of a 1.2 million CIAP grant allowed for acquisition of property south of the existing museum. The property will be protected and used as an outdoor environmental classroom. To expand our eco-education focus, we added two new exhibits in 2012. Visitors can learn about renewable energy by exploring Solar Sunflowers. These two giant stell sunflowers harness the sun's energy in solar panel "petals" and provide energy to a nearby building. In addition to the energy savings, information about the solar energy captured is relayed to an interactive monitor in the museum. Construction on a second outdoor exhibit, a Chimney Swift Tower, has recently been completed. The migration and nesting habits of these small birds will be shared with visitors as they make the tower their home. Cameras mounted inside the tower will feed images back to a monitor on the museum's second floor.

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