Great Explorations Children's Museum (formerly Great Explorations - The Hands-On Museum) is a

children's museum Children's museums are institutions that provide exhibits and programs to stimulate informal learning experiences for children. In contrast with traditional museums that typically have a hands-off policy regarding exhibits, children's museums fe ...

, program center, and

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St Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...

. It was founded in 1986 by The Junior League of St. Petersburg and Hands-On, Inc. Great Explorations - The Hands-On Museum was formerly housed in a warehouse type location in Downtown St. Petersburg with similar building architecture to the

Salvador Dalí Museum The Salvador Dalí Museum is an art museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, dedicated to the works of Salvador Dalí. It is located on the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront by 5th Avenue Southeast, Bay Shore Drive, and Dan Wheldon Wa ...

and P. Buckley Moss Museum. Its parking lot featured a to-scale replica of a ''

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

'' made entirely out of recycled scrap metal. Inside, the exhibits were divided into large, themed rooms with individual rooms being devoted to sight, sound, or touch exhibits. The touch room featured one of the more distinctive exhibits, the "Touch Tunnel." This , completely blacked out tunnel encouraged children to navigate the fun house-like path using only their sense of touch. The original museum also had a small branch located in a hallway of the

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that included smaller versions of some of the museum's popular exhibits. Eventually, the museum was taken over by new management and was moved to its current location adjacent to the re-opened and refurbished

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. At this time, the name was also changed to Great Explorations Children's Museum dropping the "Hands-On" title. Designs for the new museum included more offices and school rooms as the museum intended to expand out their staffing and education capabilities. The museum also petitioned for and was given a grant from

AmeriCorps AmeriCorps (officially the Corporation for National and Community Service or CNCS) is an independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in service through a variety of stipended volunteer work pro ...

and had Americorps members on staff for several years until the last of them graduated the program in September 2010.

Preschool and Early Childhood Education

The Early Learning Institute at Great Explorations was founded by Jeanne and Bill Heller in 2007 and offers daily courses to children ages 2–5. The institute operates its classrooms out of the museum building. The institute also offers voluntary pre-kindergarten (VPK) classes.

References

{{Reflist Museums established in 1986 Children's museums in Florida Museums in St. Petersburg, Florida 1986 establishments in Florida