Children's Museum of Indianapolis is a destination for all ages

The first clue that the Children's Museum of Indianapolis is on a different order of magnitude than most institutions of its kind comes in its parking lot, which is guarded by a 26-foot statue of the Egyptian jackal-headed god Anubis. And then there's the life-size Brachiosaur that stands at the museum's entrance, its head poked inquisitively inside a fourth-floor window. You don't have to be here long to realize that this is the Smithsonian of children's museums - and that its educational smorgasbord is served with a generous dollop of whimsy.

Established in 1925, the non-profit museum has come a long way from its origins in a rented carriage house. Today its 29-acre campus includes 11 major galleries focusing on science, global cultures, history and the arts. With 1.2 million visitors a year and nearly 500,000 square feet, this is the world's largest children's museum.

The museum's name is not entirely accurate, according to Jeffrey Patchen, its president and CEO.

“We're actually a family museum, because our exhibits and programming are designed to appeal as much to adults as children,” he says. “We want to engage the entire family from kids and parents to grandparents.”

A spiral ramp leads upward through the museum's main building and gives access to its exhibits (as well as up-close views of the ornate twists of a brilliantly colored, 43-foot glass sculpture created by artist Dale Chihuly).

Each level offers learning opportunities geared to a wide range of ages. The museum's youngest visitors love Playscape, which features a safe-for-tots climbing structure, music and art studios, and a Babyscape area reserved for infants and toddlers. Another magnet for young kids is a 1917 carousel, which offers rides for $1 (free for children under 2).

Older children have a much larger array of exhibits to explore.

In addition to a planetarium and theater with a full calendar of programs and performances, permanent exhibits include an 11,000-pound steam engine, a re-created pirate ship wreck, construction zone play area, climbing rock wall and a ScienceWorks center with a freshwater pond and hands-on laboratory experiments.

Costumed actor-interpreters, from an Egyptian archaeologist to the Wright Brothers, help visitors delve more deeply into many of the exhibits.

While many children's museums feature displays on dinosaurs, here the emphasis is on more than just seeing their skeletons.

An exhibit called Dinosphere displays the animals in realistic environments with sound effects and lighting that shifts between day and night. The area also includes a Paleo Prep Lab where scientists prepare fossils for exhibit.

“We think it's important to display genuine fossils - not just casts of them - in realistic settings,” says Dallas Evans, lead curator of Natural Science and Paleontology at the museum. “We try to show how these animals actually lived and what their world was like. Our Paleo Prep Lab is also about real, not simulated, science. It gives kids and adults the chance to interact with actual paleontologists at work. We even have a summer program that takes children, families and teachers to a dinosaur dig in South Dakota, where they can dig for fossils and help with the cleaning and classification of what they find.”

Harry Potter fans will want to take note of the display on “Dracorex hogwartsia.” When a fossil from this newly discovered dinosaur was donated to the museum in 2004, officials contacted J.K. Rowling to see if she would allow it to be named in honor of her literary creation. The author enthusiastically agreed, and the fossil with a Latin name meaning “Dragon King of Hogwarts” is now on display.

One of the museum's most inspiring exhibits is “The Power of Children: Making a Difference.”

It tells the story of three remarkable young people: Anne Frank, the Jewish teen whose diary chronicles life in Amsterdam during the Holocaust; Ruby Bridges, the first black child admitted to an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960; and Ryan White, an Indiana teenager who battled for acceptance of people with HIV/AIDS. Displays include a reconstruction of Anne's hiding place, the classroom where Ruby attended school and Ryan's bedroom. The exhibit teaches lessons on compassion and tolerance and invites children to reflect on how they can make a difference in their own communities.

And each year, the museum presents The Power of Children Awards to middle and high school students who have made a significant impact on the lives of others, an honor that includes a $2,000 grant to support their work and a four-year postsecondary scholarship. The program is one more example of what makes this institution an international model for what a children's museum can be.

For more information, visit Childrensmuseum.org or call (317) 334-3322.