New FAMily Discovery Center opens Saturday!
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Celebrating Native American culture just got a lot more interactive at the First Americans Museum. The new FAMily Discovery Center opens this weekend for families.
From top to bottom, the two-story family discovery center is packed with an immersive learning experience.
It even surprised some of the kids from Oklahoma City Public Schools who got to test it out on Thursday.
"I like it! I thought this was gonna be a museum like there's paintings and everything like that," said Pete Carpio, a 1st Grade Student at Adelaide Lee Elementary.
The center is designed to look like a pop-up book when you walk in.
"There is no real way to experience it. It's not prescribed. It's like a forest," said Shoshana Wasserman, the Deputy Director of First Americans Museum.
Celebrating Native American culture and Oklahoma, the four sections named community, respect, resilience, and stewardship, are shown throughout the forest that foster the theme they call "we are all connected".
"We also felt like it was really important from a cultural perspective that this not be a made-up world, that it be a living world. So in the course of an hour, it changes from day to night, and it also cycles through all four seasons," said Wasserman.
From climbing in the treetops to listening to laughter in the leaves, the exploring is endless.
"I like this because I haven't gone here before," said Penelope Molina, a 1st Grade Student at Adelaide Lee Elementary.
It's also a place the museum hopes will feed your imagination and like the name says, it's for the entire family.
"We were all taught, go outside and play and you used your imagination to create these amazing worlds and this amazing play. So as you meander through the forest, you will find all kinds of surprises," said Wasserman.
The FAMily Discovery Center has been in the making for seven years, and it's opening on the museum's 4th anniversary.
It's officially open to the public on September 20th at the First Americans Museum.