Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose

Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose ("the Museum") is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation organized in 1982 and incorporated in 1983. The Museum operates a Children's Museum which addresses the educational needs of children, youth and their families in santa clara county through participatory exhibits and programs that engage the senses and challenge the mind. In june, 2023, Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose (cdm) surpassed the 10 million visitorship level. In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the Museum provided engaging learning opportunities to over 234,322 family and 17,699 group visitors. (continued on schedule o)as the covid pandemic waned, cdm experienced a 50% increase in family visits over the prior year and more than a 100% growth in group visits. The increase in visitors was attributable, in part, by the high levels of rainfall in january and february, and the official end of the covid-19 state of emergency in California on may 11, 2023.since opening its doors in the spring of 1990, the Museum and its staff strive to enhance the visitor experience in its 28,000 square feet of indoor exhibition space with 13 dedicated galleries, each housing 8 10 interactive exhibits that address the distinctive need for children to learn through concrete interactions, and an adjacent outdoor exhibit space, bill's backyard, which essentially doubled the Museum's exhibit space. Exhibit signage in english, spanish and vietnamese focuses visitor interactions on the uniqueness of outdoor play, such as build, roll, climb, plant, and observe to name a few. Ten different local species of animals and insects were cast in bronze and placed appropriately throughout the area to allow children to discover them in their natural habitat. A 7,200-gallon rain-harvest system is used to irrigate the native landscape and to teach visitors about water conservation at the same time. By bringing nature to children, cdm hopes to create a spark so that children will then seek out other outdoor opportunities close to their home and become environmental stewards as they grow up. The majority of cdm's exhibits, which focus on children to age 10 and their parents and caregivers, are highly tactile and encourage touching, exploring, manipulating and experimenting, while cutting across the disciplines of art, science and the humanities. The wonder cabinet serves the needs of the Museum's youngest visitors as an early learning environment with exhibits designed to support the cognitive, emotional and social development of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Whether children are role playing a firefighter on the authentic fire engine in the streets of San Jose exhibit or using colorful plastic balls to study how water rushes and flows in waterways, they are actively engaged in learning, inspired by their own curiosity to investigate how things work and to understand more about the world in which we live. The amazing airmaze exhibit, which spans two floors inside the Museum and features scarves and yarn balls moving through a series of plexiglass tubes and emerging from one of six exits, fosters predictive learning and provides great delight to Museum visitors. The potter the otter: a healthy adventure exhibit, sponsored by first 5 santa clara county, began its 3-year tour in january 2023 and will visit smaller institutions in California in which first 5 has a strong community presence. In its place, cdm hosted its first traveling exhibit, thomas & friends, toured by the Minnesota Children's Museum, since 2019. In summer of 2023, cdm reinstalled voyage to vietnam, the travelling exhibit built by cdm after its 9-city tour. The exhibit was developed with extensive input from San Jose's vietnamese community and offers an aesthetic and deeply moving glimpse into the cultural traditions of vietnamese families. It will serve as a model as the nowruz around the world travelling exhibit is developed and fabricated. Cdm's presence in terminal b at the mineta San Jose airport, zoom zone, which opened in 2021, provides an educational and interactive play space for very young children around the theme of "things that fly." This space has been well-received by traveling families and promoted as an airport amenity by the city.substantial progress was made on the development on exploration portal, the 4,000 square foot outdoor space connected to bill's backyard and adjacent with woz way during the fiscal year. Architect brad cox working with the landscape design firm callander & associates, submitted construction drawings to the city's cultural facilities architectural services, within the general services department, for review and approval. Bids will be solicited from three construction companies, and cdm will work with the selected company to value engineer the project, as project costs have increased substantially since the project's inception, to ensure that the space continues to focus on the intersection of math and nature for its content, and to provide more places for families to interact with exhibits and the natural world. Introduced at the 2022 legacy event, the smartflower is a sunflower-design installation that tracks the movement of the sun and generates solar power. Cdm entered into a contract for the purchase of three (3) smartflower components. Scientific art studio was selected to design and fabricate the outdoor exhibits and will work in conjunction with the architect. While the xu family charitable foundation remains the major sponsor for this space, with additional funding, in prior years, from first 5 santa clara county and the santa clara valley water district provide through the safe, clean water and natural flood protection program (measure b november 2012), additional commitments from barron ranches (molly and barry swenson,) the open space authority, and the county of santa clara, through the effort of county supervisor cindy chavez, were secured in 2022-2023. A community campaign to achieve the exploration portal fundraising was launched at the legacy 2023 event and will seek contributions ranging from $250-$100,000, and offer recognition on items, such as boulders, trees, benches and various garden areas. Construction of exploration portal is slated to begin in fall/winter of 2023 with a public opening slated for early summer of 2024. Continuing the Museum's board and executive staff focus on operating feasibility in terms of mission and financial liquidity, cdm utilized its "sinking fund" with the city, which is a 1-to-1 match, with cdm committing a small portion its annual operating support from the city. This year's allocation was used to update, and make ada accessible, the lighting, audit and projection systems in the lee and diane brandenbrug theatre. A $175,500 special mayor's grant, recommended by city council member raul peralez, was approved and will be used to replace amphitheatre lighting and av equipment, which had been stolen; to install a security wall for the cadence amphitheatre; and to purchase and 30 additional security cameras, with 24-hour monitoring on the exterior cameras. The city's general services department continues to provide major infrastructure upgrades. In 2022-2023, the Museum's 30+ year old boiler was replaced and plans to replace the freight elevator began. Work on both the freight and passenger elevators are slated for the fall of 2023. Cdm repaid its $150,000 eidl loan from the small business administration in november 2022. At this time, all support from federal covid-19-specific programs has been fully expended.

The Museum provides on-site and outreach programs which complement its exhibits and support visitor interactions and learning opportunities. 2022-2023 saw the return of group visits to the Museum, with 17,699 served, which represents 50% of the group attendance for 2018-2019, and an additional 6,374 served through on-site or outreach programs. In conjunction with the stanford flue crew and anthem blue cross, which provided free family passes to those receiving the vaccine,cdm offered two on-site covid vaccination clinics in september and january, when the federal-funded covid vaccine program ended. The Museum's mission continues to support a three-pronged approach to the arts: (continued on schedule o) engagement with and viewing the work of professional artists; exploring other Children's art; and creating individual works of art in various formats. The new artist-in-residence program was launched in fall of 2022 in the leroy neiman art studio, under the direction of cdm's arts program manager. The program will host a professional visual artist for 3-month residency leading children in art-making activities and sharing their professional talents. Through various cultural festivals, such as mid-autumn festival, dia de los muertos, diwali, menorahs and miracles, dia de los tres reyes magos, lunar new year, children of the dragon, and proud of my family, and juneteenth, cdm continues to offer its local community the opportunity to celebrate the region's diverse ethnic composition. Play your way, cdm's event specifically designed for families with children on the autism spectrum, was relaunched in fall of 2022. Additional community events in 2022-2023 included the big family play day and kristi yamaguchi family literacy festival. The big family play day, initially hosted in Discovery meadow in 2019, moved inside as a facility use and provided activities and product samples to families. The kristi yamaguchi family literacy festival, a partnership with kristi yamaguchi's always dream foundation and the San Jose public library, premiered in june 2023 and featured Children's book authors, celebrity story reading, Children's performers and special hands-on activities focused on reading. Pnc bank joined the event as a presenting sponsor and exhibited its mobile learning adventure. Cdm was also accepted into pnc bank's grow up great network, a national program dedicated to serving children from birth to age 5. Participation in this network will allow cdm access to resources for its work with its cbo partners: educare, ican and somos mayfair in east San Jose. Cdm's cultural competence learning institute (ccli), working with its national partners: the association of Children's museums and the association of science and technology centers and the garibary group, has been funded by two national leadership grants from imls. Cdm hosted a two-day meeting of the national partners to acknowledge the decade-long effort to support museums across the country in their efforts to achieve inclusive practice and to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and access initiatives. The previous model of a year-long professional development institute for museums has been transitioning to individual online learning courses. With generous support from adobe of its captivate and adobe learning manager software, ten courses are in development, featuring content gleaned from the previous professional development institutes and testimonial videos from Museum professionals around the country. Future plans/options to steward the ccli program and its intellectual property are in discussion with the national partners.cdm completed year 4 of a 6-year collaboration (one-year extension approved by the national science foundation) with the exploratorium to improve stem participation by latinx audiences, leveraging cdm's decade-long ccli planning and implementation with the exploratorium's work to reach latinx audiences. Cohort 3 was comprised of Discovery science center (nv); boston science center (ma); space center houston (tx); the butterfly pavilion, (co); and sierra Nevada Children's Museum (ca. )in partnership with maryam eskandari, miim designs, cdm launched a multi-year initiative about nowruz, the persian new year celebration of the spring equinox, which is celebrated around the world today. After identifying a group of cultural ambassadors, community volunteers who share their personal knowledge, experience and understanding of nowruz and will provide introductions to other persian community members, who can provide cultural expertise, artistic talent or resources to the project, three meetings were held in 2021-2022. Resulting from these sessions, four working committees were created, and a multi-year road map was developed to create a world-class interactive exhibit for children called nowruz around the world, and an authentic festival celebrated annually at cdm. Exhibit design planning with miim resulted in an initial conceptual design for a 2,000 square foot travelling exhibit in spring 2023. Revision of initial concept was made, and an extensive community listening campaign was begun with those representing difference perspectives on celebrating norwuz, which is celebrated in more than 20 countries, in order to surface issues prior to final design. The initial cost estimates for the travelling exhibit are $1.52 million. A pilot nowruz around the world event was held at cdm in march, 2023 with over 2,800 participants and featured a traditional "haft sin" table, hands-on activities and Children's performances, and volunteers from applied materials. Cdm continuously strives to understand and to improve its service to its visitors. Moving forward, the Museum will continue to restore programming, which was ceased due to covid-19, and to embrace new program opportunities, as resources permit, and audience demand is evidenced. In 2019, cdm joined the collaboration for ongoing visitor engagement surveys (coves) led by the Museum of science, boston. Participation in this collaborative enables cdm to survey its visitors systematically about their Museum experience, and to garner demographic information about its visitors. In summer of 2023, coves ceased accepting online visitor surveys and moved back to in-person responses. Cdm used this shift to create and hire for a new position: a visitor engagement representative. Additionally, cdm contracted with alexander babbage for its trutrade software and consulting services, which uses esri to provide mapping and advanced data analytics of cdm's visitors, to understand better the Museum's reach and the impact of its programs. In fall 2023, the Museum's senior management team will begin the creating an adaptive plan program through bridgespan, a non-profit consultant which was possible by tuition underwriting from the david and lucile packard foundation. The result is to develop a 2-year vision, the priorities and actions needed to achieve the vision.