Natural playground coming to the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota
The Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota met with internationally acclaimed playground designer Adam Bienenstock (center) in early February 2024 to discuss initial plans for the natural playground.
Courtesy of the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota
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The Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota is in the early stages of a 150,000 square-foot expansion, which includes a natural playground, one of the first of its kind in Minnesota.
Once finished, the museum will have nearly two acres of outdoor space for kids to get their hands dirty — and their minds busy.
The children’s museum is partnering with internationally acclaimed designer of nature-based play areas, Adam Bienenstock, to design and build the space. The CEO of the Children’s Museum, Louise Dickmeyer, joins us to talk about the new playground.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
INTERVIEWER: We want to talk next about the children's museum of southern Minnesota. They are so excited down there. They're in the early stages of a big expansion which includes a natural playground. One of the first of its kind in Minnesota. Once finished, the museum will have nearly two acres of outdoor space for kids to get their hands dirty and their minds busy.
The children's museum is partnering with an internationally acclaimed designer of nature based play areas to design and build the space. The CEO of the children's museum Louise Dickmeyer is on the line. Louise, welcome.
SUBJECT: Thank you, Cathy. It's my pleasure to be with you today.
INTERVIEWER: How would you even describe a natural playground?
SUBJECT: Well, it's easy. It's all natural materials. So it'll include trees and water, and rocks and soil, and clay and acorns, and bushes and all of the things that are present in our natural environment. But in most playgrounds, they've been developed over the last several decades with a lot of metal and plastic. And so we're going the other way. There's a lot of benefits to this natural approach to play.
INTERVIEWER: OK, I'm thinking park here. But it's a playground.
SUBJECT: It won't, it'll be more. It is a playscape. It's really that playground term. I think, certainly connotes what we think of as a normal playground in a city. This is really going to be a natural play space that will actually get as you get farther away from our building, the play experience will get wilder.
So there'll be a lot of loose parts and not so many deliberate structures but more natural structures that children will be able to engage with.
INTERVIEWER: Something that some of us might have experienced when we were younger. Really, just getting out there, climbing all over, downed trees and that thing.
SUBJECT: Yeah, absolutely. When I was a kid, you used to get up in the morning and jump on your bike and off you went, and you needed to be home in time for supper or when the noon whistle rang.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
SUBJECT: That just doesn't happen anymore. There's been a great migration of children indoors and it is causing a fair amount of distress with children these days with higher rates of childhood obesity and diabetes, and higher rates of depression and anxiety. And it's been proven through research that the more time children spend interacting in nature with all five senses, it counters all of those negative effects.
So we really hope to be able to bring a space to Minnesota to the upper Midwest region, to all our families where they're going to be able to enjoy nature year round.
INTERVIEWER: So it's a great thing to get kids out in nature. But I can hear some parents saying, OK, hang on. OK, we want to keep kids safe out there too. How might that happen?
SUBJECT: So we've had some interesting conversations, Adam Bienenstock, actually who's working with us on this project is a world renowned and they they've had 3500 installations of these nature playscapes around the world. And they've never had a single accident report attributed to their materials. And their research shows that you're much more apt to be injured if you're on artificially made types of playground equipment.
So we're going to work with them to bring as rich and authentic and experience as possible in the nature space because that is very much in keeping with what we do with our existing gallery now.
INTERVIEWER: OK. So once this is installed and kids are out enjoying it. They come back in or you run into them as they're leaving the museum and you ask them, well, what did you think? What are you hoping to hear?
SUBJECT: Oh. Maybe that they've just never even had that freedom. We will have a fence around this 3 and 1/2 acre campus. So we fondly refer to that as fenced in freedom and so it gives the children and their caregivers some sense of security for their play experience. But we really hope they get their hands dirty and we already have a mud kitchen outside and kids just dive in, and have a great time.
So we hope that it'll be a really enlightening, invigorating experience that ignites their natural curiosity.
INTERVIEWER: Did you just say mud kitchen?
SUBJECT: We do have a mud kitchen.
INTERVIEWER: What is that?
SUBJECT: It's very popular. It's a kitchen outdoors and the kids get to make muffins or pies or salads or whatever they would like with mud or dried flowers or acorns or whatever, pinecones, sticks.
INTERVIEWER: Making mud pies, mud cakes. Why not? Of course, I bet it is wildly popular. By the way, how will this new playground be funded?
SUBJECT: So we're working now with raising private dollars as well as appealing to the state along with many other very valuable projects to secure some bonding. We'll continue that effort hopefully here over the next couple of years and otherwise, we're already out of the gates with our private fundraising.
And hope to be-- we're very hopeful for being successful in raising those dollars.
INTERVIEWER: Well, I hope to see it when it's all done. Thank you, Louise. Best of luck.
SUBJECT: Thank you. Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Louise Dickmeyer has been with us. The CEO of the children's museum of Southern Minnesota.
The children's museum is partnering with an internationally acclaimed designer of nature based play areas to design and build the space. The CEO of the children's museum Louise Dickmeyer is on the line. Louise, welcome.
SUBJECT: Thank you, Cathy. It's my pleasure to be with you today.
INTERVIEWER: How would you even describe a natural playground?
SUBJECT: Well, it's easy. It's all natural materials. So it'll include trees and water, and rocks and soil, and clay and acorns, and bushes and all of the things that are present in our natural environment. But in most playgrounds, they've been developed over the last several decades with a lot of metal and plastic. And so we're going the other way. There's a lot of benefits to this natural approach to play.
INTERVIEWER: OK, I'm thinking park here. But it's a playground.
SUBJECT: It won't, it'll be more. It is a playscape. It's really that playground term. I think, certainly connotes what we think of as a normal playground in a city. This is really going to be a natural play space that will actually get as you get farther away from our building, the play experience will get wilder.
So there'll be a lot of loose parts and not so many deliberate structures but more natural structures that children will be able to engage with.
INTERVIEWER: Something that some of us might have experienced when we were younger. Really, just getting out there, climbing all over, downed trees and that thing.
SUBJECT: Yeah, absolutely. When I was a kid, you used to get up in the morning and jump on your bike and off you went, and you needed to be home in time for supper or when the noon whistle rang.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
SUBJECT: That just doesn't happen anymore. There's been a great migration of children indoors and it is causing a fair amount of distress with children these days with higher rates of childhood obesity and diabetes, and higher rates of depression and anxiety. And it's been proven through research that the more time children spend interacting in nature with all five senses, it counters all of those negative effects.
So we really hope to be able to bring a space to Minnesota to the upper Midwest region, to all our families where they're going to be able to enjoy nature year round.
INTERVIEWER: So it's a great thing to get kids out in nature. But I can hear some parents saying, OK, hang on. OK, we want to keep kids safe out there too. How might that happen?
SUBJECT: So we've had some interesting conversations, Adam Bienenstock, actually who's working with us on this project is a world renowned and they they've had 3500 installations of these nature playscapes around the world. And they've never had a single accident report attributed to their materials. And their research shows that you're much more apt to be injured if you're on artificially made types of playground equipment.
So we're going to work with them to bring as rich and authentic and experience as possible in the nature space because that is very much in keeping with what we do with our existing gallery now.
INTERVIEWER: OK. So once this is installed and kids are out enjoying it. They come back in or you run into them as they're leaving the museum and you ask them, well, what did you think? What are you hoping to hear?
SUBJECT: Oh. Maybe that they've just never even had that freedom. We will have a fence around this 3 and 1/2 acre campus. So we fondly refer to that as fenced in freedom and so it gives the children and their caregivers some sense of security for their play experience. But we really hope they get their hands dirty and we already have a mud kitchen outside and kids just dive in, and have a great time.
So we hope that it'll be a really enlightening, invigorating experience that ignites their natural curiosity.
INTERVIEWER: Did you just say mud kitchen?
SUBJECT: We do have a mud kitchen.
INTERVIEWER: What is that?
SUBJECT: It's very popular. It's a kitchen outdoors and the kids get to make muffins or pies or salads or whatever they would like with mud or dried flowers or acorns or whatever, pinecones, sticks.
INTERVIEWER: Making mud pies, mud cakes. Why not? Of course, I bet it is wildly popular. By the way, how will this new playground be funded?
SUBJECT: So we're working now with raising private dollars as well as appealing to the state along with many other very valuable projects to secure some bonding. We'll continue that effort hopefully here over the next couple of years and otherwise, we're already out of the gates with our private fundraising.
And hope to be-- we're very hopeful for being successful in raising those dollars.
INTERVIEWER: Well, I hope to see it when it's all done. Thank you, Louise. Best of luck.
SUBJECT: Thank you. Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Louise Dickmeyer has been with us. The CEO of the children's museum of Southern Minnesota.
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