Reno's Discovery Museum opening eyes, minds and horizons

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A climbing maze in Reno's Discovery Museum A little boy playing pilot at Reno's Discovery Museum
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A crawling & climbing maze spanning from floor to
ceiling in the central hall of the Discovery Museum
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A little pilot exploring the Discovery Museum in
the “Biggest Little City” (Dec. 2013)
Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum, Reno, Nevada The Discovery—as the Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum in Reno is called for short—inspires children, parents and educators. The museum includes exhibit, workshop and activity areas as well as party rooms, a picnic place and a museum store. Exciting spaces of recreation, exploration and learning include the LEVA planks Built It! gallery, the Spark!Lab Smithsonian (the only one outside Washington, D.C.), and the Da Vinci's Corner.


The Museum Floor Plan provides an overview of places and displays. The lower level contains an “Under the Stars” exhibit. Yes, their is a coiled-up rattlesnake on its floor in the spelunking corner, where we learn about cave features such as stalagmites, stalactites, curtains ans wedding cakes. The lower level artrium floor also provides access to the Cloud Climber (top left picture), a sculpture-like column of fixed, flat clouds on which kids love to crawl and walk up and down through the dimensions of the atrium.

In addition to the above mentioned spaces with creative toys and puzzles, the main level features a bristlecone tree and a “Nevada Stories” room, animating the mining and railroad history of Nevada and giving cultural snapshots of the Washoe, Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone tribes, having lived in the Great Basin for thousands of years and having made so many untold discoveries of their own.

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The Discovery aims “to keep young minds thriving” and “to raise the bar for fun, family-based learning throughout the community” [www.nvdm.org/about/mission_vision.php]:

Vision: To be the community's center that inspires curiosoty, creativity and the joy of lifelong learning.

Mission: The Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum is a hands-on museum dedicated to inspiring lifelong learning in science, technology, engineering, art, math, and the world around us.

The Discovery Museum is located in the northern part of the Midtown district, east of the Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse and Federal Building and north of the street art corner with the unspooling rollfilm and superimposed sceneries.

Address: 490 South Center Street, Reno, NV 89501
Phone: (775) 786-1000
Internet: www.nvdm.org

Hours & admission. The museum is closed on Mondays.