This museum wants to get kids playing outdoors this summer

While most museums aim to challenge and inspire creative thinking in young minds with their childrens’ programs, the Discovery Museums in Acton just wants kids to put down the screens and get outside.

“We had a big opportunity in the fact that we had our existing property and an adjoining conservation land property,” explains Discovery Museums CEO Neil Gordon. “We decided we wanted to find ways to reconnect kids with nature and the outdoors.”

Faced with 4.5 existing acres, and a conjoining 180 of conservation land, the museum decided to create a nature-based playscape that was both interactive, enticing and accessible to all. The result was Discovery Woods, a $1.5 million immersive environment featuring a family size slide, listening tubes, beaver lodge and the mega treehouse of your childhood dreams built by the DIY Network’s “The Treehouse Guys.”

“It should feel like an invitation to get outdoors and be a mechanism that acts as the first step to get kids out there,” Gordon adds.

Discovery Woods opens with a celebratory weekend on July 16-17 with food trucks, tunes and free admission for kids 12 and under.

But what we really want to know — can we get in that treehouse, too?

Gordon laughs. He’s already been there, several times. “It’s funny because my office is in a separate building on our campus so couple time a day I’ll get up and walk out to see what’s going on up there,” he says. “I like to think of myself as our first success story.”

If you go:
Discovery Woods opening weekend
July 16-17, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Discovery Museum
177 Main St, Acton
discoverymuseums.org