Clay Center's Discovery Museum

On our way home from Virginia we made a stop in Charleston, West Virginia to visit a Children's Museum.  As we have a membership at the local Cincinnati Museum Center we enjoy reciprocal benefits at a number of museums around the country and one of those is at the Clay Center.

The Clay Center’s Avampato Discovery Museum houses three floors of hands-on discovery exhibits featuring more than 12,000 square feet of non-stop fun. Splash around in WaterWorks, learn about the science of sound in The Maier Foundation Music Studio, and get your body in motion in Healthy Me!! Check out real life exploration in My Town and climb to new heights on Ashton’s Climbing Sculpture! Like to change it up every once in a while? Our Mylan Explore-story gallery plays host to limited time exhibits from all over the country.
--from Clay Center website

The museum is conveniently located close to Interstate 64 as we drive through Charleston, West Virginia on our way home to Kentucky from a visit to Virginia (or vice versa).  The only downside is that parking is in a pay lot, but I really can't complain when we're getting in to the museum for free.  Just take note that they're not open on Mondays--we made that mistake once and had some disappointed kids.

Inside the building we headed for the Discovery Museum once we had gotten our tickets.

They had quite a number of different science based exhibits such as this skeleton.

I had to take this picture inside the restroom because I don't think I've ever seen a black toilet before.

I thought their WaterWorks exhibit was quite amazing.

I've enjoyed WaterWorks at the Duke Energy Children's Museum in Cincinnati for a number of years (ever since I started working there and taking my nieces and nephews to visit), but this one was much better.

At one point you can experience rain.

Inside this area there were also ways to experiment with the water flow via boards that would block and redirect water.  If you made the watercourse narrow enough the water level would deepen, showing what happens during a flood when levees have been built along a river.

There is also a water vortex.

Downstairs is a fascinating area where kids can explore an entire town's worth of experiences.

Kids could explore a fire engine.

Then they could ride on a police motorcycle.

At the government section they could pretend to be governor and learn about laws, governance, and voting.

Inside the bank you'll find an ATM where you can actually insert a toy card.

The cards are connected to a job sheet.  If you take the card and go do a job at another location in the town you can add money to the card.

The card can then be used to pay for things at the grocery store.

At the grocery store there is plenty to shop for.

You can ring out your purchases on the cash registers.

Want to fix a car?  Come on over to the repair shop sponsored by a local car dealership (we see one of them along the highway every time we drive through West Virginia).

The theater is even open.

It features a stage with plenty of costumes for kids to enact their own dramas.

Lastly we stopped by the Department of Planning.

Here you can plot out what the roads and buildings of a new city could look like.

Plenty of different options are available, including evil roundabouts, ;-).

We had a great time visiting the Discovery Center and will definitely be back on one of our trips to Virginia.  You can view more pictures from our visit in this album.

~Matt