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If you’ve spent any time at The Children’s Museum at all, you know we don’t shy away from difficult topics. The moment you walk onto Level 3, you’re met with the faces of four children who faced awful circumstances and helped change the world. It is an honor to tell their stories in The Power of Children: Making a Difference®. As keepers and tellers of their difficult stories, we take this responsibility seriously. Yes, the stories are difficult for children—and former children—of any age to hear.
But the impact of this exhibit, and others like it, is immeasurable.
A long history
The Power of Children® is not the only space that tackles tough topics at The Children’s Museum. We have a long history of addressing challenging themes in our exhibits.
Drug Scene: Indianapolis
All the way back in 1972, we opened an exhibit called Drug Scene: Indianapolis. It highlighted the negative impacts of drug addiction and abuse.
Passport to the World
In 1986, we opened Passport to the World. Located in our current Take Me There® gallery, this exhibit explored how people around the world celebrate, communicate, create, and imagine, featuring items from the Caplan Collection. The exhibit was divided into four areas, each with a different theme. The artifacts in each area showed how the themes were depicted in cultures around the world. Guests were invited to cross international borders without leaving Indiana.
Why was it important to learn about other cultures? Because the more we learn about other cultures, the more we can accept and respect our neighbors—next door and around the world.
Passport to the World opened families’ eyes to the world around them, sparking conversations and strengthening family memories for more than 20 years.
Teens Speak Out on Issues
In 1988, we opened Teens Speak Out on Issues. We worked with local students ages 10–17 to create this exhibit that addressed issues that concerned them.
Under the guidance of school and museum experts, more than 200 students created this powerful exhibit. From choosing the topics, to writing labels, to designing and building displays, these teenagers led the way in every aspect of the exhibit’s creation. The exhibit focused on six key topics—AIDS, child abuse, education, war and peace, teen pregnancy, and drug and alcohol abuse. The exhibit showed that children can tackle real-world issues and use their voice to make a difference.
Vietnam Memories
The Vietnam War impacted nearly every American household in the 1960s and 70s. It continued to cast a long shadow on families for decades to come. In 1998, we hosted a traveling exhibit called Vietnam Memories…Stories Left at the Wall, which displayed letters, photos, and other personal items that had been left by loved ones at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. This sparked important conversations about war, courage, love, and life.
Anne Frank: A History for Today
In 2001, we hosted a traveling exhibit from the Anne Frank Center called Anne Frank: A History for Today. It provided a compelling look at how the tragic events of the Holocaust continue to inform and shape our thinking, beliefs, and actions, challenging children and grown-ups alike to take positive action to ensure such a horrific event never happens again.
The Power of Children: Making a Difference®
Anne is one of the four children featured in The Power of Children®, which opened in 2007. Her story is told alongside those of Ruby Bridges and Ryan White. We added Malala Yousafzai’s story in 2021.
Anne, Ruby, Ryan, and Malala faced challenges like hatred, racism, discrimination, and oppression. Their stories continue to inspire children to stand up and make a difference in the world around them.
Take Me There®
In 2009, we reimagined the Passport to the World gallery space with a new permanent exhibit—Take Me There®. Through this immersive and interactive exhibit, children and families can explore the daily lives of children around the world. We opened Take Me There®: Egypt in 2009, then Take Me There®: China in 2014. Our current version of the exhibit, Take Me There®: Greece, opened in 2019.
The Take Me There® gallery continues to shine the light on acceptance and mutual understanding. Because when we get to know how people in other cultures live their daily lives, we can accept and respect our neighbors—next door or around the world.
Anne Frank Peace Park
In Anne Frank’s widely-read diary, she describes a beautiful horse chestnut tree. In 2013, a sapling from that tree was planted in the Anne Frank Peace Park in front of our Welcome Center. It continues to serve as a living reminder of hope and peace to everyone who enters the museum.
National Geographic Sacred Journeys
In 2015, we opened a brand-new temporary exhibit that gave families the opportunity to observe, discuss, and begin to understand some of the sacred journeys—from personal acts of faith to pilgrimages—made by people around the world. The exhibit—National Geographic Sacred Journeys— was created to foster awareness and cultural understanding through photography, stories, and one-of-a-kind objects.
Stories from Our Community: The Art of Protest
During the summer of 2020, racial tension was at a tipping point throughout the United States, including right here in Indianapolis. That August, 18 local Black artists gathered along Indiana Avenue in downtown Indianapolis to create a piece of public art. Within a week, it was vandalized.
A year later, we worked with the 18 Art Collective to open Stories from Our Community: The Art of Protest. By exploring this exhibit, children and their grown-ups have the opportunity to discover how artists’ creations can evoke empathy and understanding of others’ experiences by communicating stories, messages, and emotions that words alone cannot always express. We can understand each other better when we hear each other’s stories.
Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See
In 2022, we partnered with the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center to create Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See, telling the story of a mother’s fight to have her son’s story heard and exploring how this story helped fuel a movement that changed a nation.
Sacred Places
Building on our experience with creating National Geographic Sacred Journeys along with our long history of tackling potentially sensitive topics in an age-appropriate way, we opened Sacred Places in September 2023. By hearing personal stories, families can encounter some of the many different ways people around the world practice their faith, religion, or spirituality.
By providing children the opportunity to experience beautiful and culturally diverse people and places around the world, Sacred Places encourages them to have a healthy, respectful, and inclusive view of others—even those who seem different.
World changers
We do not take lightly the role that children’s museums and other institutions can serve in challenging, equipping, and encouraging children and grown-ups to make waves of positive change in their communities. Children don’t have to wait until they’re grown-ups to make a difference. They can make a positive impact right now.
That’s why we have highly-trained staff in our exhibit spaces who can help guide conversations. That’s why we create digital resources available to help parents continue these crucial conversations at home. That’s why we address hard-to-approach topics in an age-appropriate way at The Children’s Museum.We cannot shy away from potentially uncomfortable topics. Sometimes we need to lean into them. Because wrestling with challenging topics helps us grow into kind, compassionate, and caring people.
We believe that children can change the world. They already are.
