Our 1954 Oren fire truck was too big to fit through the proposed doors of the new Discovery Center, so the building was built around it

  PERMANENT EXHIBITS
 
 
 
Creation Station Shadow Room
Discovering Healthy Families Tennessee Live!
Discovery Depot Tiny Town & TotSpace
Farmers Market Waterworks
Fire Truck Wetlands Boardwalk
Kids Build KEVA Wings & Wheels
Newton's Loft & Super Slide  
   
Travelling Exhibits  
Tinkertoy: Build Your Imagination 02/04/2012 - 05/13/2012
Tree Houses Exhibit 05/26/2012 - 09/07/2012
Maze Mania 09/17/2012 - 01/06/2013
To Be Announced Winter 2013
Animal Secrets 05/25/2013 - 09/08/2013
 

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PERMANENT EXHIBITS

Creation Station Art RoomCreation Station
Packed with paint, clay, chalk, paper, cardboard and everything in between, Creation Station has all you need to bring out your inner artist! Let your imagination lead you to create your own masterpiece or join us for guided sessions available on Thursday and Saturday afternoons.
 

 

 



Discovering Healthy Families

The hands-on activities and visual displays make the exhibit fun and

informative for the entire family. Children can learn about healthy choices on the “Make Your Choice” wall, see if they can jump as high as a kangaroo in on the Jumping Wall, check their blood pressure or build the food pyramid. Parents can learn about how to make lifestyle changes for the whole family with tips from cooking together to exercising together to learning the power of colorful foods.

 

Discovering Healthy Families exhibit is funded in part by:


 




Discovery DepotDISCOVERY DEPOT

Kids of all ages can put on a conductor's hat and help run the Discovery Center trains! Future train engineers can dress up as a railroad engineer, buy a ticket, and explore the Discovery Depot. Thank you to Kimberly Osborn and family for naming our Train Room!

Discovery Depot model trains run at the following times:
Monday-Saturday:
   11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 4:00 pm

Sunday:                  1:30 pm

The train room is open for viewing during museum hours.

 


Farmer's MarketFarmers Market
Who knew shopping could be so much fun… and healthy? Our Farmers Market is open daily and is packed with yummy fruits, vegetables, pastries, and grains. Grab your basket, load up the conveyer with food, and roll your picks down to our cash registers. Families can learn how many miles the average meal takes to arrive on their dinner plates and the importance of buying locally grown food.


Fire TruckFIRE TRUCK
Firefighters, get ready to take a ride on our ever-popular fire engine. Put on your hats, pull on your boots, and climb aboard our 1954 Oren Fire Truck. Visitors learn about the history of fire fighting in Murfreesboro, the importance of each piece of firefighters’ gear, as well as fire safety tips.
 

 


Kids Build KEVA
A box of planks, a box to foster imaginations, a box of building pieces! KEVA Blocks are perfectly cut, identical construction blocks that stack with amazing ability. Children instinctively know how to stack, so the fun can begin immediately. Build a train – a bridge – an animal – whatever you can imagine!

 

 

 


Super Slide
What better way to learn about gravity than to slide down our 2 ˝ story super slide!


Shadow Room
Phosphorescence is “phun”! Use your whole body to explore the world of light and shadow as you freeze your shadow on a phosphorescent wall.


Tennessee Live!Tennessee Live!
Turtles and fish and snakes, oh my! Discover the aquatic world in our living stream table, enjoy a visit with our live animals, dig in our fossil pit and explore the Cherokee Nation in our Tennessee Live! exhibit.
 

 


TINY TOWN & TOTSPACE
Tiny Town is made up of five role-play environments where children can explore how people work, live, and play together. Tiny Town features a Tiny Town Kroger, Tiny Town Home Depot, Corner Cottage, postal center, and music store.



Tot Space, our first area dedicated solely to infants and crawlers, adjoins Tiny Town. Tot Space’s woodland theme provides the backdrop for a safe, soft-play environment designed for early spatial awareness, as well as coordination and balance.


Click here for more information and pictures of Tiny Town & TotSpace.

Tiny Town is sponsored by:

Other support provided by the Center for Creative Play, Junior League of Murfreesboro, the MetLife Foundation and the Predators Foundation.

TOTSPACE Sponsored by


Water Works

Water Works
Crank, funnel, pour, squirt, measure, float! Discover the wonders of the Earth’s most abundant resource through an interactive system of pulleys, pumps, wheels and pipes that demonstrate how we manipulate the multi-functional power of water.  Prepare to get wet as you learn about the many uses of water!

 

 


Wetlands

Wetlands Boardwalk
Enjoy our Murfree Spring boardwalk which winds around 20 acres of natural wetlands where you can explore the wonders of nature. Keep your eyes out for our river otters, blue herons and muskrats!

 

 


Wings & Wheels
Play on our interactive Brio Train Engine, take a trip to Coal Mountain, experience an assembly line, or engage with our ever popular Brio train table - it's all a part of Wheels! Use wrenches, screwdrivers, and drills to rotate car tires, check oil levels, and even replace a muffler in the Nissan Super Service Center. Go back in time with displayed award-winning antique vehicles donated by Mr. Ed Delbridge, information about Tennessee’s transportation history, and hundreds of model cars.

Then, you can explore the properties of air and wind, learn about Rutherford County aviation history and check out the model plane collection in Wings!

Thank you to the following companies and individuals for donating
their time and resources to our Wings & Wheels exhibit:

Mr. Ed Delbridge and the Delbridge family
Minh-Triet & Greg Tucker*

David Augustin   •   Ron Cain   •   Corporate Flight Management   •   Ralph Fullerton   •   Novus Henry   •   Allen Howell   •   Robert A. Huddleston   •   I.P.M.S. Middle Tennessee   •   Donald McDonald   •   Tom Winter

*Mr. & Mrs. Tucker's gift is in memory of Burney Lee Tucker, Jr, one of the original USMC VMF 214 "Black Sheep" pilots in World War II.


Check out more photos from Wings & Wheels!