Photograph courtesy of Children’s Museum of Atlanta
March is Women’s History Month, a time when many organizations showcase the diverse contributions women have made to the long march of human progress. What to do, then, if your target audience can’t read, write, or sit still for more than 30 seconds?
Such challenges are no impediment for the creative minds behind the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, who specialize in the art of play-based learning for children ages zero to eight. “We try to be ‘hands on, minds on,’” says Karen Kelly, director of exhibits and education. “It’s really child-led. The kids may seem distracted, but they’re probably going to take away one little thing they learned.”
Every March for nearly a decade, Kelly and her colleagues have used that ethos to build a suite of programming celebrating Women’s History Month, all designed for young people who may not yet know the meaning of women, history, or even months.
This year, the theme of the exhibit is “daredevils,” featuring women who broke the mold in their respective fields. The marquee daredevil will be Annie Edson Taylor, who in 1901 became the first person to survive plunging over Niagara Falls in a barrel. “That’s kind of crazy!” says Kiera Quinn, manager of public programs. “We liked the theme because we can apply it to literal daredevils and women who have pioneered in their own industries.”
Photograph courtesy of Children’s Museum of Atlanta
Rather than present a history lecture, Quinn and her team built a hands-on experience around Taylor’s legendary feat. To the disappointment of some aspiring daredevils, it does not involve sending children in barrels over Niagara Falls; instead, kids will experiment with dropping handmade vessels from a height of a few feet while attempting to keep a figurine from falling out. “It’s about studying the art of engineering, but if it doesn’t work, then you just try, try again,” says Kelly. “It’s a good chance to encourage kids to keep trying.”
Other featured daredevils include Dolly Parton, whose one-of-a-kind career will be celebrated through the making of collage guitars in the art studio; Black fashion designers Ann Lowe and Zelda Wynn Valdes, explored via a dress-up cardboard runway show complete with a red carpet; and South African Kiara Nirghin, who as a teenager used the absorbent properties of orange peels to develop a new soil-retention material. At the Science Bar, kids can explore Nirghin’s invention by playing with different absorbent materials and seeing which holds water best.
Photograph courtesy of Children’s Museum of Atlanta
Meanwhile, there will be regular readings of a book about Eugenie Clark, a pioneering American ichthyologist—a word that kids and their grown-ups may learn for the first time during a visit to the Children’s Museum (it means “fish scientist”).
These exhibits are designed with deep attention to how children learn, but staff members don’t worry too much about which historical facts their young visitors will retain. Those lessons are incorporated into the experience itself, whether it’s adjusting the angle of a barrel in a fall or putting on a bow tie to pose on the runway. “It’s all about trying new things,” says Kelly. “They see that this cool person from history tried something new, and they think, I want to try that, too.”
This article appears in our March 2025 issue.
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