EdVenture is as Adventure, Columbia, South Carolina

 

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Steve Jobs

My daughter decided to take her small herd of children, six to be exact, to EdVenture for the day. It is just over an hour drive from Augusta, Georgia so it is a nice easy trip. My job was to be her back up. We have been there before and the children loved it and now we heard there were new displays so it was time to go back. This is the largest children’s museum in the southeast United States and opened in 2003 covering 92,000 square feet. This museum is located at 211 Gervais Street in Columbia, South Carolina. This is a hands on, interactive, problem solving museum that is great for kids and their imaginations.

As soon as you walk into the museum you see Ed, who is supposed to be a 10 year old boy, sitting in the custom built glass atrium just for him.  He is smiling at a large firefly sitting on his finger. Ed is quite large as you can see. He stands 40 feet tall in his sitting position. You can walk up the steps and go inside Ed to see his inner workings. You can see his brain and see his heart pumping. You can even see how he can digest food. The children always love climbing up the stairs and walking through him, That is great fun for them and also a great learning experience.

Our first stop in the museum was the Dalmatian Station featuring a real firetruck with has all the bells and whistles of a real one. As the lights are flashing, you can even see a film on the windshield of a firetruck driving down roads to a home. They can climb aboard and put on a fireman's hat and coat and pretend to drive the truck. They teach fire safety so the children will know what to do in case of an emergency. There is even a fire pole, just like at real fire stations, to slide down after you are done with the firetruck.

Next, we went to the farm where you can collect eggs, see how a cow is milked, see the bottling process, and climb on a tractor. Across from that is a kitchen where you pretend to cook up some of the farm produce wearing a chefs hat and apron. I love how interactive this place is for children. They learn so much from all the hands on displays. It is marvelous watching all the children exploring.

The small Publix Grocery Store is where children can shop, stock shelves, and act as a cashier ringing out the groceries. Our kids could have stayed in there for hours. They adored playing there and took turns doing the different jobs over and over. Maybe they will have a future in the grocery business.

Next to the store is a library where you can go in, sit down, and read books in a quiet zone. They also have a dressing room where they can pick and choose outfits to put over their clothes so they can put on a show. There is even a puppet stage where they can use their imaginations and puppets and put on a puppet show.

Then onto the veterinaries office. Once again the children can put on lab coats and use play instruments to check out the stuffed animals. They enjoyed looking at the X-rays they had up on a light up board of different animals. After a thorough examination, they can put the animals back in their cages till their next exam. 

MedVenture has been expanded with many new exhibits. What a great set up. There was a large size Operation game to play that the kids loved and as they played learned about body parts. They also had a teeth display where you could take the large plastic teeth out to see what a whole tooth looks like. They also has a screen where you could move in front of it and it would show what your muscle looks like as you move and also your skeleton. A ambulance sat in the corner, set up where you could get in the back and see what was inside. They added a new examining room where the kids took  turns laying down while others pretended to exam them.

That was the downstairs. But there was more; lots more. The upstairs had a couple rooms loaded with paper, string, paste, etc for the kids to create something. When they were finished they could put it in an air machine to see if their creations could fly. In another corner, there were large Lego blocks they could use to build something. As Thomas Edison said, “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk..” The children sure had fun experimenting.

The Flight exhibit was amazing where you can get inside the exhibit of part of a real airplane. Passenger seats were aligned just as in a plane and there was even a cock pit for the kids to look and turn displays, and pretend to fly the plane. Once again, the kids could put on pilot coats and hats as they checked out the plane. There was so much for them to do there including to try to fly an aircraft on a video game. In another section, there was a space rocket to climb and slide down. I loved the quote near the rocket by Socrates - “Man must rise above the Earth – to the top of the atmosphere and beyond – for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.”

My Backyard is a great area for the toddlers to play. This is a place they can crawl safely and explore. EdVenture also offers camps for kids of all ages throughout the year and offer deals on birthday party's.

They also had a paper airplane center loaded with paper to try their luck. The object here was for the kids or adults to make a paper airplane that could fly. Then they could take their airplane to the launch  and see if there airplane would fly, All the kids were very competitive with this game and really enjoyed the challenge. Another great quote that was posted nearby was by Amelia Earhart - “Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.”

They even have laboratories where they do science experiments that the children can take part and they also have a 200 seat theater that offers different shows through the year.

Outside the museum there is a small plane the kids can go in and play as well as water games adding an additional 7,000 square feet.

There was so much more to see and do. This is a great museum to see that is a great learning experience for the kids and is fun as well. If you want to take your kids to a teaching museum, this is it. We had a great day there. 

Till next time. Bye for now.