Taking Kids To New Heights | Kansas Children's Discovery Center
By SAMANTHA MARSHALL and LAUREN JURGENSEN | Photo by BRIAN PETERS
This time next year, the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center (KCDC) will have grown to more than double its current size thanks to a $10 million expansion project.
The project will add 16,000 square feet, 75 new parking spots and countless hours of play and learning for little ones up to 12 years old.
In addition to exciting new family-friendly exhibits, the expanded space will allow KCDC to address Topeka’s urgent need for more child care.
“We spend lot of time listening to the community and we’re hearing them ask for more,” said Dené Mosier, president and CEO of KCDC. “The challenge for child care is real. By expanding, we can ‘age up’ what we’re doing.”
MORE TO EXPLORE
Set to open in fall 2025, the KCDC expansion will include 11 new exhibits. Each one is meant to inspire fun that encourages the science, technology, engineering, art and math-based learning (also known as STEAM) that is the basis for much of the center’s programming.
Three new learning lab classrooms will create space for child care for school-age children. The expansion’s crowning glory will be the “Sunflower Climber,” an indoor, two-story climbing structure anchored by the tallest climbable sunflower in the world.
“We’re giving a nod to our state flower with an exciting and challenging climbing experience,” Dené said. “Kids will get to new heights. They’ll have new perspectives. They’ll have opportunities to build gross motor skills year-round.”
3D FEEDBACK
Before finalizing their expansion plans, KCDC staff held three listening sessions with the public this past summer. A special session held for children was key in nailing down the center’s future offerings.
“We see ourselves as being a reflection of what the community needs,” Dené said. “Those sessions helped us hone in on the overlap between our mission and the needs of the community.”
After reviewing the drawings, clay sculptures and stories that children who attended the special session created to express their ideas for the new space, a few themes stood out.
The kids want to climb, they want to use real tools and they definitely want more sensory play.
“We saw their excitement when they shared what they were wishing for,” Dené said. “Knowing we can make some of those dreams come true is just delightful.”
KCDC used that feedback to shift how they plan to deliver certain programs. That includes making the center’s water experience available all the time, upon hearing how many kids were requesting it.
REACHING YOUNG (AND OLDER) DREAMERS
While KCDC sees around 10,000 students on field trips every year, Dené said she thinks the expansion will allow the center to provide expansive programming — such as summer camp and “School’s Out” days — that appeal more to older children.
“Those programs will allow us to really jump into some of those exciting STEAM experiences,” Dené said. “It gives us the chance to spend a whole day with kids and focus on what they’re really interested in.”
Inside the three learning lab classrooms will be a state-of-the-art teaching kitchen, as well as a garden and maker space.
Although KCDC has always encouraged kids to pursue STEAM-based careers, the maker space is a fresh opportunity for children to explore them through experimentation and play. Students can engage with engineers, seamstresses, architects and many other professionals while using state-of-the-art materials and supplies.
“Kids will have hands-on experiences to spike interest in future careers,” Dené said. “Any time kids can turn play into a future pathway for a career, it inspires them to become lifelong learners.”
BUILDING FAMILY BONDS
When visitors pass through the center’s doors next fall, much of what they see will be different from the KCDC they’ve always known. But Dené said their goals haven’t changed.
“At the end of the day, we enhance quality of life by strengthening families,” Dené said. “Play is really where that happens. Giving families an opportunity to learn together and for children to grow and discover alongside their caregivers, is what builds family bonds.
