Investing in Our Future

Meeting a Community Demand for Increased Museum Options

In a signed petition, 1,100 adult members of the Durango community asked us to expand the size and scope of the Children's Museum to include school age youth and adults. The Discovery Museum was created to meet this challenge. The museum will not only meet this community's demand, but it will expand our regions museum options by including exhibits for young and old in a space 16 times the size of the Children's museum.

The local need also exists for a science education facility that showcases nationally important energy events in the 4-Corners Region of the United States. The next closest interactive science museum in this region is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, three hours away. The museum will meet our regional need for lifelong science education and create a unique energy education experience for the Four Corner's regional audience of 200,000 persons as well as the 800,000 annual, international visitors who come to Durango.

The Durango Discovery Museum will be a community asset and an investment in our regions children and families. Investing in the community's youth builds a civil society from the ground up. Research repeatedly shows that active parent involvement is a key predictor of a child's lifelong well-being. Supporting positive adult and child interactions makes good economic sense as well. James Heckman, the 2000 Nobel Prize winner in economics, stated:

We cannot afford to postpone investing in children until they become adults, nor can we wait until they reach school age - a time when it may become too late to intervene. Learning is a dynamic process and is most effective when it begins at a young age and continues through adulthood.

 

Meeting a Regional and National Need for Energy Education

The national need is to develop powerful energy education products and exhibits that serve people outside of the classroom learning. Over a lifetime, most learning occurs outside of schools, and most household energy decisions are made by people who have completed their formal educations. Furthermore, most academic programs are unlikely to provide strong energy education. For these reasons, the Discovery Museum aspires to be a national energy education center that helps learners of all ages and abilities make sense of our national energy needs, technologies and sound practices. A focus on energy education outside of school will serve an educational concern that is deeply relevant today and for generations to come.