Hello, and welcome to What's Brewing in Education. I’m your host, Superintendent of Schools, Scott Kuykendall, and I am glad to have you join me today. Today's guest is someone who plays a key role in shaping the dreams and adventures of young explorers. The CEO of the Modesto Children's Museum, Chelsie Webster. In this episode, we will take you on a journey to learn more about the Modesto Children's Museum where curiosity knows no bounds. From interactive exhibits to hands on learning, this spa
ce is designed to spark the imaginations of children. Welcome, Chelsie. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Yeah, this is exciting. Or I really want to get into that kind of the everything, the nuts and bolts of the Modesto Children's Museum, because one, I think it's extremely important for our community. But two, it's new. And I think people have questions about it. And so I think maybe we'll just start off kind of... Who are you? Who am I? And what brings you to Modesto Children's Museum? Yeah.
So. Chelsie Webster, thanks for having me. So I'm the CEO of the Modesto Children's Museum, and it is, like, probably one of the best, most lucky positions I've ever found myself in to be the CEO of this museum. It's been such a cool opportunity. But I come to this area from Ohio, so I am very much not native to this area and have been learning a lot about the Central Valley, about Modesto, about California, you know, all sorts of new environments for me. But I come from the science museum worl
d, so I worked for quite a while in different positions from sort of bottom to top at a science museum in Ohio called Cosi, which is the center of science and industry, which is the largest science center in the country. So really prestigious place and very excited to have learned from them. So is that anything like what our San Jose Tech Museum is? Exactly right. In that vein, those are all in the cohort of the museum I was working at in Ohio. It's been around for 60 years, I think one of the e
arliest science museums in the country. And so it's just a place with a lot of history and knowledge. So I was really lucky to sort of be brought up there, but I had no intention of working in the museum industry. I got my teaching degree like a lot of folks, and I love to working with kindergartners, first graders. I have my master's degree in early childhood education and I thought it'd be fun to work in a museum for like a year. And here I am so the museum world, it's I mean, right now 15 to
I don't know enough years later that it's definitely, you know, become my passion working in sort of this informal learning space because it is a space that I think is so critical to the education sort of ecosystem, but is not one that's often thought about or thought about as an important piece of the ecosystem because it's informal. You know, it’s not something that's mandated and it's not something that's happening every single day, but it's so critical. So I've been very lucky to sort of fin
d myself in this space. But it was all by happenstance and I'm glad to sort of be here in this moment in time. Right. So born and raised in Ohio. Yeah. Are there any similarities that you that you see between what and Modesto? Absolutely. So I spent a lot of years in Columbus, Ohio, which, you know, is very similar size to San Francisco, which most people wouldn't think. But I grew up in a small town called Mansfield, Ohio, which is very similar in size and sort of region as Modesto. So very agr
icultural in Ohio, a lot of folks from different backgrounds, so, you know, coming here has felt very familiar to me, which I wasn't anticipating when I first came out for an interview. I was not expecting to go, hey, I, I know these people. I know this kind of place like this feels familiar to me. So, yeah, a lot of similar economics, you know, a lot of things that very, like hearken to my my hometown. So feels very familiar to me and very interesting because my hometown, the thing that is diff
erent to me is I see a really cool energy happening here in Modesto and even in the broader county of this like growth and movement and sort of interest in new ideas that like, feels very special to to something that's happening here very specifically and unique. This community has a really strong desire, I think, to collaborate and to do great things. Yeah, I'll just I'll just put that out there. So let's talk a little bit about kind of how did the Modesto Children's Museum come to be? This is
the story that really sold me on moving across the country with my entire life to take on this work. The story of the Modesto Children's Museum is one of a couple of people within the community seeing a need within the community and going, I'm going to I'm going to meet that need. I'm going to fix that problem. So our founders, our three couples, the Bradys, the Barbers and the Foys, they are from this community, they have children in this community. And they really felt that sort of lack of inf
ormal learning space for children in our community. They had to often drive to the bay Area or go up to Sacramento or, you know, they were driving 90 minutes to get these experiences for their children to like, enrich and enrich their education. And they were like, why? Why can't we have that here? We should have that here. So they started, you know, the nonprofit, the Modesto Children's Museum, and started inviting collaborators on board. And this is the part that just blew my mind the amount o
f support and willingness from the community to jump in on this thing that was an idea. It wasn't a beautiful building. And with the, you know, beautiful exhibits in it yet. It was just this idea that, you know, community members had and they had the wherewithal to go out and figure out how to do it. You know, none of them had worked in museums before and none of them had the background. They just decided like, we are, we can solve this problem if we work together. So they brought a ton of folks
together, raised all sorts of money to hire world class fabricators, world class designers. The museum that's sitting here is truly something you could pick up and put in any major city in the country and it would be at home. It is like truly a phenomenal space. And that's because they had the audacity to think that we here in Modesto deserve a world class, you know, a learning environment. So they took that idea and ran with it. And that's where we are today. So I know that the three couples t
hat you just mentioned, I know that they don't necessarily have extensive background in, originally, yeah, in children's museums, however, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that they did travel to a variety right when they were they had the idea they were thinking about what do we want to have here? What do we want to create? So they did travel to quite a few really world renowned top notch children's museums in the process. Absolutely. And so they didn't just stay the six of them either.
They brought on community members to build sort of our founding board, which, you know, expanded to about 15 people. So within those 15 people, I think they visited something like 50 children's museums, not just even in our country, across the world, You know, they would be traveling for pleasure. I'd be like, well, there's a children's museum about an hour from here. We should rent a car and go, you know, like they were deeply invested. And so they didn't just, you know, take it, you know, on
the word of of designers and exhibit fabricators of what we should do. They went out and saw this really works here. And this city is really like like our city And here's what they're doing. And, you know, this building space might be about the size of our building space. So they used it really creatively. So I think that all of that information got sort of dumped into this project. So it was really well informed. And they also went to the community and said, What do you want? They just surveys
across the entire county through the libraries. They went out, you know, with library programs and asked for feedback from people. And so they were just sort of creating in a vacuum. They wanted this to be a space that the community felt ownership over, felt proud of. And so, I mean, the way that this project sort of started and came to be was just of the highest standard, which again, when I was sort of seeking out a new role and found the Modesto Children's Museum, I was like, You did what? Li
ke you did? How did you do that? You know, it was just surprise and shock and just all of these people that took an idea and made it a reality, you know, it's so impressive. Well, let's talk about the reality. Yeah. If you're if you're talking to parents, right? I'm talking to parents with younger kids. What can they expect when they walk into the museum? Well, so back to that survey we took from the community, there were three very important things that we learned from the community. One is the
y wanted to see color. They didn't want it to be drab. They didn't want it to be black and white and to, you know, stuffy. So it's colorful. And they're you got every color under the sun inside of it. And it's color. It's colorful outside of colorful inside. So we knew that that was a big component. The other thing that they wanted to see were our stories of the Central Valley reflected back at us in a very positive light and a very proud light. So, you know, there are all of these exhibits insi
de, but there are there's deeper meaning that ties back to the Central Valley so that when kiddos are exploring this space, they're seeing themselves in this environment. And the third thing that you'll definitely find is it's all bilingual. We know how important Spanish and English are to this community, and we wanted to make sure that the space was as accessible as possible for as many people as possible. So that is something that from the ground up it was absolutely important from day one. So
it was a sort of overarching concept, but nitty gritty you'll find ten hands on exhibits which sort of explore a range of ideas from science to art. We've got at a stage that kids can get up on, pick their backdrop, pick their costuming and put on a performance in the in the space. So very imaginative play. We've got a water lab that you know, you can get very wet in. We we recommend often the parents maybe go there last if you don't want to walk around the museum with a wet child. But you know
, that explores the water cycle but also the water cycle here in the Central Valley. So, you know, we've got Rainbow Falls and an irrigation system where you can build up crops and dams and let that water flow out to the ocean. So really trying to reflect back like the kiddos might see canals every single day here and now they're playing with the idea of a canal and irrigation within our museum. We have a maker lab, we have learning labs like classrooms that we can do programing and field trips
and all sorts of things. And so these ten exhibits, again, a variety of ideas, but really trying to pull back to this area and give kids these really powerful ways to play in our space. How long would it take? Like if I'm going to, let's say I'm going to bring my six and seven year old, what kind of time should I set aside to like, really explore that and the entire museum? So we think our average you know, we're still learning we've only been open for about four months, but we think the average
visit time is about two and a half hours. I think that that can be longer or shorter depending on who you are, who your kiddos are and how old they are, and also if you're a member. So we have a membership program where people can come in and go, Today we're going to say for 30 minutes and we can come back in two days and stay for another 30 minutes, you know, So that depends on your visit style, I guess. But about two and a half hours, you can see every exhibit spend a good amount of time at e
ach exhibit, which is a pretty good chunk of time, if you if you got a six and a seven year old having them occupied for two and a half hours. And so I just kept pressing really throughout. okay. Yeah, that's my kids are much older. but tell me a little bit more about kind of the ages and who is the museum appropriate for? Yeah. So our mission is that the museum is for all children. So we when we think of all children, we think zero to, you know, 17 years old but our exhibit specifically are des
igned for about 0 to 10, 11, 12, you know, depending on your kiddo. So a lot of hands on content that would be very interesting at very varied age levels. And a lot of our exhibits often have many entry points to them. So, you know, if I'm 2, I might have a different experience in our Color Story train than if I'm 11. You know, I might, you know, gravitate towards different ideas within that space. So 0 to 11, we have a space that's specifically for our 0 to 3 year olds that sort of, you know, w
alled off so that they're not fighting over an exhibit with an eight year old. You know, that it makes it a little bit more logistically easy for parents in that space. But we're really proud that we are starting a volunteering program for kiddos ages 12 to 17 because we want them to be in the space as well. We want them feeling like they belong in that space. But we know that, you know, just visiting might not have the same impact on them. So we're bringing them in in a more intentional in an i
ntentional way where they apply to volunteer with us and then they can spend hours on the floor actually facilitating activities with the younger guests. So having that near peer education, which is so important, you know, for both developmental groups, so. Right. Yeah. So I'm, I'm really interested in that. Have you started that? So applications are open right now, which is incredible. We've got some applicants that have been signing up. They're getting we're doing the process very intentionall
y. We want them to fill out an application, you know, to practice. Right. We will be doing interviews with them again. We want them to gain those skills. And then really the big goal out of our volunteer program is that they feel comfortable sort of giving up, provoking a guest to come up to them and go, Hey, would you like to engage with this? Which is a very scary skill if you are 14 years old, depending on the kiddo. So really some of those learning goals are a little different with our older
kiddos. But again, using the really beautiful space and the hands on activities to sort of, you know, further their sense of self and their educational sort of knowledge in the world. So I think that's great and I'll tell you why because the County Office of Education for years and years and years now we've sponsored Foothill Horizons sixth grade camp, right. And we're always looking for high school volunteers who want to be camp counselors. Right. And so many times they've come back and they'v
e said that was like a great experience even to the point where we just had a young man come back and he went and apologized to his teacher after, after, you know, after his own experience. He's like, I get it now. Yeah, it's actually right. Like, wait a minute, we're responsible for a group of kids and wow, this is a lot harder than I thought going to be. But at the same time, a fantastic learning experience and they grow and they mature. So yeah, it's that's awesome. We're really excited for i
t. And again, it helps us meet our mission of engaging all the children in the Central Valley, you know, of all age groups and sort of seeing the needs a little differently. But yeah, we're really hoping and we want to expand those programs too. So you know, we want to meet kiddos in different places along their sort of journey of childhood here in the Central Valley. So yeah. Okay. So a couple weeks ago, I'm walking back to the office here and walking by the children's museum. The bus. Wow. In
the front. So tell us a little bit about schools access field trips. The schools want to participate, bringing groups of kids in. How would all that work? So that was one of the key, sort of the key motivators even for our founders as their kiddos are spending, you know, 4 hours on a bus to visit a museum somewhere for 45 minutes. You know, it was just this really unequitable sort of visit experience. So we've wanted to create that here in the Central Valley. So you can spend 4 minutes on a bus
and 4 hours with us if you want that, you know, changing sort of that equation. So we've been really lucky to have so many school groups already coming to visit us. And there is a little bit of a sort of a misunderstanding going around that we are only, you know, a good visit site for, you know, kindergartners or TK, which is untrue. We we accept visitors, you know, fourth grade, fifth grade. If you think your kiddos would love it like you are, welcome to visit us. So I want to, you know, squash
that nonsense right now. But yeah, we take field trip groups. We're going to take them year round. So there are, you know, camps or summer school happening in the summer will still be able to offer sort of a field trip experience. What that looks like is, you know, they arrive on their busses with their chaperons and teachers. They come in, they get a presentation from us that's all about how to be an explorer when you play, how to learn and wonder, and, you know, sort of take the idea of play
and add some framing to it that playing is actually learning. And you can you can really gain information by being curious. So we give them a really great presentation on that and then we send them out into our exhibit spaces for a couple of hours. We have a chaperon guide so that, you know, a parent that's like, I'm not an educator. I don't know what to be doing here. We have guides for them. It's like, Here's how to engage in this exhibit. Here are things you might want to ask, you know, just
sort of giving some support in that way. And these field trips have been wonderful. The kids come off the bus and just like, you know, the look of shock on their faces, as has been incredible sounds, I mean, it is impressive and well, the drop images kind of as we're going. Yeah. So if you're actually watching this. But the outside of the children's museum really looked like it was it could have been created by a child just like building with Lego bricks. Yeah. It's and it's meant to really evok
e the sense that this is for children. You know, they they know it's for them the minute they they spot the building and there's even a child sized door, a little door. It could be some kid's favorite exhibit. And the whole space, they just want to go in and out of that door, which is really, really cute to see. Yeah. Yeah, it's wonderful. And so if you are an educator and you are interested, we are we have a whole portion of our website, the Modesto Children... It's just Modesto Children's Muse
um.org. That's for educators that shows you where that chaperon guide is. It tells you how if you want a field trip, you can get in touch with us and we will be opening up our registration for next year here soon. So, you know, staying in touch with us via our newsletter, social media, what we tell folks, you know, hey, it's open. You can go register for your next year's field trip. So we're really hoping that that becomes a tradition within the Central Valley. What’s your capacity? Our capacity
... So it's about 250 people at a time. So our field trips, we cap out at about 100. So like three classrooms with chaperons is kind of where, you know, where it feels comfortable, which has been working fairly well. Even if the whole school wants to come, we can sort of break them down into smaller chunks and have them visit on different days or even throughout the day, because we offer a field trip times both in the morning and in the afternoon. So yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All
right. Tell me then, because, I mean, everything that you've just talked about is really impressive, but I know that what you currently have isn’t necessarily all that you want the Modesto Children's Museum to be. So kind of what are you most proud of as you're looking into the future? About what could be? Yeah, I'm I'm really excited. So obviously in this first year we you know, we haven't even hit six months of being open yet. Our first year of operation we really want to master what it looks
like to visit us, you know, at our space. You know, what does it feel like to be a guest in that space and our staff training and really, you know, making sure that they're getting trainings on, you know, Spanish speaking and ASL and safety and all of these things that, you know, we want to build a team that's really, really wonderful to interact with. So we're investing a lot of time in building out our our physical location. But what I see coming in the future is how do we take that location
and then sort of expand it out? How are we... how are we taking what we're doing and being able to go out to a school and, you know, in a classroom, have the same sort of magical experience. So I think for a year or two we'll be looking at outreach programing and how we are sort of packaging up what we're doing and taking it out into the community because we know that transportation is often a barrier for, you know, for both families and for schools, you know, getting a hold of a bus and being a
ble to pay for a bus is not often possible. So, you know, we want to break down as many of those barriers as possible. So we know that going out into the community is going to be a necessary sort of piece of that equation, yeah. The museum is less than a block away from the Gallo Center of the Arts. Are there any collabs that you guys are thinking about doing or is it one of those things where you know, okay, great, we're going to do a field trip and, you know, maybe we can, you know, kill two b
irds with one stone, so to speak. And we've had a couple of those where it's sort of been a self-imposed sort of collaboration where a group is visiting the Gallo Center in the morning and us in the afternoon, which has been wonderful. And we're really lucky. They have been a wonderful resource to us. One of our founders actually works in the leadership team at the Gallo Center for the Arts, so we have a lot of great connection with them and they have been really great resources, just as, you kn
ow, a cultural center downtown that's been around a little bit longer than we have, you know. So we've got great professional collaboration with them, which I'm really grateful for. And I think the long term goal would be to find ways like, how are we collaborating? What you know, what does it look like when they're doing sort of their kids fair that how are we involved in that way? What does it look like to do camp? We have camp going all summer long. I know that they also camp going all summer
long. How do we, you know, mix and match there? So there's endless opportunity. I would say at this point we haven't quite gotten to the place where we're seeing our legs are still a little wobbly, so we're not quite bringing anybody else in just yet. But that's definitely on the horizon and a hopeful goal for us to be able to to work with them more intentionally. So I know that all this information can also be found on your website. But just as a parent who wants to come down and check out the
museum and what are the hours? Great question. So something we're really, really proud of and has been, you know, a very interesting challenge is we're open every day of the week. So we are open seven days a week and we are open most days 10 to 5. The only exception to that is Tuesdays. We're open 1 to 5. So it's our only like half day because in the morning we're fixing all the exhibits that may have, you know, had too many hands on them the last week. So we're open every day of the week. So h
opefully there's a day that works for families to come down. You can walk up and purchase a ticket, you know, when you arrive on site. My recommendation is to purchase one in advance because you never know if it's a crazy busy day and suddenly we're at capacity and you and your very excited kiddo have to wait a little while to get in, which we don't want to do. But, you know, we want to make sure it stays safe in the building. So I recommend buying in advance. There are two ticket prices. So our
ticket price for adults and kids is $15 anybody over the age of one. But if you utilize SNAP or EB benefits or part of a national program called Museums for All. So if you utilize SNAP or EBT and can show us your card, your family of up to six can get in for $3 a person. So that again trying to make sure that everybody feels like they have access to this space. Yeah. Anything else that I mean, is there anything out there that you know what what should educators know is should parents know? I th
ink the biggest thing to know right now is that we want to be a resource in this community. So if you see a gap or if you see an opportunity, we want to know about it. We're brand new. So, you know, we definitely don't have everything figured out and we are looking for creative things to be doing in the future. So we're really open to partnership, we're really open to collaboration, we're really open to feedback. You know, if you have an experience and you're like, Hey, it would be great if you
did this, you know, let us know. We are something that we talk a lot about at our team and with our guests is we're all humans first. So, you know, like we are figuring it out alongside the community and we want this to be in collaboration. So please reach out. There is hello@mochimu.org Mochimu is our nickname, which is, yeah, Modesto Children's Museum. So Mochimu is our easy to say little nickname that we use. So hello@mochimu.org you can reach out to us any time and our team will get back to
you. But yeah, we are, you know, we are an institution of learning and we take that seriously, which means that we are always in the process of learning. So we are very grateful to the community in the ways that they have look to partner and collaborate and give advice and feedback. So I would just say that that's very welcome and we we hope to continue that on. So I love it. Yeah, I love it. Chelsie, thank you so much. for coming in and sharing with us. Yeah, I appreciate you having me and I lo
ok forward to seeing the great things we can do inside the county as well. So thank you so much. Excellent.
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