Bay Area Discovery Museum

The Bay Area Discovery Museum is a children's museum located in Sausalito, California inside the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is right at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. The museum's mission is "to transform research in early learning experience that inspire creative problem solving" so that children will gain skills to become the innovative problem solvers of tomorrow.

The museum is geared to children from 6 months to 10 years of age with different areas of the museum tailored to a specific age group. Children have the options of exploring the 6 different sections of the museum: Art Studios, Bay Hall, Discovery Hall, Lookout Cove, Tot Spot, and Fab Lab. Each area is designed in a way to support and further the mission of the museum and provides hands-on, child-directed exploration that ignites creative thinking, flexible problem-solving, and exciting discoveries. All Museum exhibitions, both indoor and outdoor areas, are hands-on and play focused. In fact, Bay Area Discovery Museum is the only children's museum in the country to be located inside a National Park.

The museum also hosts many events and programs, allowing families to engage more deeply with the museum's missions. The Museum has its own accredited preschool, Discovery School on its premises that is grounded in child-directed learning such as the Reggio teaching method among others. Other programming at the Museum includes family classes, member programming, and camps. "drop-in" programming during the day are approximately one-hour chunks of curriculum developed around themes such as nature exploration, art exploration, or movement and singing exploration. Guests are invited to visit these programs around the museum, such as Toddler Circle Time, Storytime, The Box, Art Lab, and Nature Lab to experience varied programming centered around the mission of creative thinking and engagement.

Special holiday celebrations at the museum focus on celebrating the diversity of the Bay Area. Favorites include Chinese New Year, World on Stage music performances, Earth Day, Dia de Los Muertos, and Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. The museum hosts three fundraising events that are open to the public including, Goblin Jamboree, Forum (a luncheon lecture on creativity), and Annual Family Gala that allow attendees to contribute to furthering the museum's mission.

Besides programming centered at the site, the museum is actively engaged in the surrounding community in a variety of capacities. Connections, a comprehensive outreach program, aims to create sustainable relationships between the Museum and the diverse communities of the Bay Area. The Museum invites preschools to visit five times annually to experience child-directed play in our immersive exhibits. Additionally, Museum educators provide hands-on programming that deepens children's relationship to the natural world. Through exploration, collaboration and guidance from adults, big discoveries happen. Staff members visit the partnering preschools to broaden the scope of the program. Ongoing support throughout the school year helps teachers connect the Museum experience into their classroom curriculum.

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