This is the beginning of things

Granny Ground Squirrel is the official historian of the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum. The Museum is located in downtown Marquette at 123 West Baraga Avenue and is currently the only Children’s Museum in the entire Upper Peninsula. The Museum’s home is really five buildings joined together and has been used as a stable, a hotel, a sweatshop, and during the past fifty years, as a cold storage warehouse!

The Museum officially opened on May 2^nd, 1997. The Museum is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to the bustling efforts of the resident staff and about 100 volunteers. These volunteers range in age from 8 to ???

Before we continue with more fun,
our current hours of operation are:

Monday - Wednesday:	10:00 a.m. -- 6:00 p.m.
Thursday:	10:00 a.m. -- 7:30 p.m. grandparents are half price from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Friday:	10:00 a.m. -- 8:00 p.m.
Saturday:	10:00 a.m. -- 6:00 p.m.
Sunday:	Noon -- 5:00 p.m.

Call us for the latest information at 228-3911,
or if you’re away from Marquette,
call Toll Free at 1-888-590-UPCM

The first of nine areas to open in the Museum is called the “Investigation Station” where kids and the young-at-heart can learn about re-cycling, turtles and snakes, model railroading, the inner workings of a tree, real honey bees and much, much more.

Another open area is called “Micro Society” where kids can shop at all the wacky businesses along Main Street, U.S.A. You can visit the Outta This World Travel Agency, the Post Office, the Faces Studio, the Graceland Sound Studio, the Early Stages Theatre and the world famous Fossil Rock Candy Cafe featuring such delicacies as Brontosaurus Burgers with Volcano Ketchup, Barney’s favorite. Got trouble . . . call SafetyVille Emergency 911 Dispatch . . . call in the Troops!

. . . and don’t forget the MINE TRUCK . . . it’s BIG! and YELLOW! and KIDS CAN DRIVE IT!

. . . and, and the Museum has its own FANTASTIC Gift Shop, Dino-Store-Us where there are Great Gifts for Growing Minds!

The Museum has hosted as many as 160 children a day and averaged 6 birthday parties a week. If you really must know, the children just love “flushing” their teacher ... ask some of the Elementary School teachers, they’ll tell you.

I’m getting pooped ... you’ll just have to explore below or, better yet, come and visit first hand to see all the wonders ... while you’re here, look for the Over the Air Exhibit (Aviation/Space, Weather, Radio), the Incredible Journey HealthExhibit and the World View Cultural Exhibit.

	Be sure to come down, you hear!

Since 1993, years before the Children’s Museum officially opened, the Museum has included a Creativity Department in its programming. Each summer, the Museum has hosted a . Young actors and designers have attended the Workshop to make a performance. They have made scenery, masks, huge fish and all sorts of “props”. They have written skits and told stories.

Imagine performing a mime story with a fifteen foot high mask, controlled by six puppeteers, while 40 members of a professional orchestra play Beethoven.

Twice each year, the Creativity Department has brought actors from Missoula Children’s Theatre in Montana, to Marquette and surrounding communities. On November 9^th, 1996 Missoula Children’s Theatre produced “Johnny Appleseed” with 50 Students ages 5-18 in Ishpeming, a town near Marquette.

The program offers the Museum direct youth and community input regarding the Museum’s content. The Museum, in partnership with a multitude of businesses, agencies, corporations and institutions, has conducted 15 Design-O-Sauruses as of this date. These programs have resulted in unique designs for the Museum and its exhibits.

The Mine-O-Saurus project was made possible by a portion of a $25,000 donation to the Museum from Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company. The intended result of Mine-O-Saurus is an exhibit centered around mining, an industry which is prevalent in the region. This exhibit would become a part of the cornerstone exhibit, The World of Science and Nature.

The objective of the Theatre-O-Saurus was the creation of a design for the Museum’s theatre area. The workshop encouraged interaction and discovery between adults and youth. Fostering creative thinking, instilling knowledge of the design process in a fun and exciting environment, and including innovative U.P. manufacturers in the process were key elements to the success of the Theatre-O-Saurus.

The objective of the Kitchen-O-Saurus was to create a design for the Museum Kitchen, while encouraging creative thinking and action among the participants, as well as teaching the process of design and creative problem-solving.

Participants in Aqua-Saurus were given the opportunity to explore and understand the relationship between groundwater and watersheds, and the parts they play in the Hydrologic cycle. Once empowered with an understanding of these concepts, the participants worked to design an exhibit on groundwater to be included in the Museum’s World of Science and Nature exhibit hall.

The Mead-O-Saurus team met in Escanaba at the Mead Publishing Paper Division on four Saturdays. The design team, consisting of 8-18 year old youth in the accompaniment of the adult of their choice, participated in hands-on learning experiences. The group toured the paper mills to learn how paper is made, as well as forestry sites and paper using facilities around the Escanaba region. The team experienced the local resources, made their own paper, and joined in many activities as a means of providing ideas for the design of a final exhibit related to forests, water and paper making.

is a program for junior high and high school aged youth. The program began as an experimental initiative called Innovation Arts Institute. Funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Northern Initiatives worked with the Department of Art and Design at Northern Michigan University to establish the program. The program has now been relocated to the Children’s Museum, where it will be a permanent and ongoing project entitled Youth Design Studio.

The project was funded by a Serve Michigan grant, through the Michigan Department of Education. Teen parents worked with experts on child development to explore the needs of their toddler children. The youth then designed an exhibit that would serve as an educational resource for young children and their parents, and also become an experience that would strengthen the bond between parent and child with unique interaction. The project, with its motto of “My world, My child, My self” generated innovative ideas that will be used in the exhibit’s design.

Housed in the Upper Pennisula Children’s Museum, the is a news agency created by and for children. Its mission is to give children a significant voice in the world. It is published bi-weekly in the Marquette newspaper, the Marquette Mining Journal. Children’s Express stories are read by many readers every week (see above for a partial sample or ).


		Now, visit
		... or
		... or visit the if you’d like!

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This is the tail end of things

		The *Mine-O-Saurus* project was made possible by a portion of a $25,000 donation to the Museum from Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company. The intended result of Mine-O-Saurus is an exhibit centered around mining, an industry which is prevalent in the region. This exhibit would become a part of the cornerstone exhibit, The World of Science and Nature.
		The objective of the *Theatre-O-Saurus* was the creation of a design for the Museum’s theatre area. The workshop encouraged interaction and discovery between adults and youth. Fostering creative thinking, instilling knowledge of the design process in a fun and exciting environment, and including innovative U.P. manufacturers in the process were key elements to the success of the Theatre-O-Saurus.
		The objective of the *Kitchen-O-Saurus* was to create a design for the Museum Kitchen, while encouraging creative thinking and action among the participants, as well as teaching the process of design and creative problem-solving.
		Participants in *Aqua-Saurus* were given the opportunity to explore and understand the relationship between groundwater and watersheds, and the parts they play in the Hydrologic cycle. Once empowered with an understanding of these concepts, the participants worked to design an exhibit on groundwater to be included in the Museum’s World of Science and Nature exhibit hall.
		The *Mead-O-Saurus* team met in Escanaba at the Mead Publishing Paper Division on four Saturdays. The design team, consisting of 8-18 year old youth in the accompaniment of the adult of their choice, participated in hands-on learning experiences. The group toured the paper mills to learn how paper is made, as well as forestry sites and paper using facilities around the Escanaba region. The team experienced the local resources, made their own paper, and joined in many activities as a means of providing ideas for the design of a final exhibit related to forests, water and paper making.

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Creative Performance Workshop </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Design-O-Saurus </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Mine-O-Saurus </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Theatre-O-Saurus </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Kitchen-O-Saurus </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Aqua-Saurus </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Mead-O-Saurus </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Youth Design Studio </A>

<A HREF="http://www.upcmkids.org/"> Toddlerscape </A>