Mackenzie Steele on Creative Discovery Museum Chattanooga
At the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga, learning looks a lot like play, and play is serious work. From the center of the museum’s atrium, Mackenzie Steele, Director of Marketing and Communications, shares how one of Tennessee’s most beloved children’s museums has spent 30 years helping families learn together through hands-on experiences, creativity, and curiosity. The conversation explores what makes Creative Discovery Museum uniquely place-based, how its exhibits reflect Chattanooga’s culture and growth, and why children’s museums are a powerful indicator of a healthy community.
About Mackenzie Steele
Mackenzie Steele leads marketing and communications for the Creative Discovery Museum, helping connect families, educators, and the broader community to one of Chattanooga’s most impactful institutions.
With a passion for storytelling and community engagement, she plays a key role in expanding the museum’s reach and shaping how families experience learning through play.
Shaping Childhood in Chattanooga
As cities grow and education continues to evolve, the question isn’t just what children learn—it’s how they learn, and where that learning happens.
Institutions like the Creative Discovery Museum are quietly reshaping that answer.
In a world increasingly driven by technology, standardized testing, and structured systems, spaces dedicated to curiosity, creativity, and hands-on discovery are more important than ever. They give children permission to explore without pressure, to fail safely, and to discover interests they didn’t know they had.
Resources
Creative Discovery Museum
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Spencer Patton: [00:00:00] Welcome to Signature Required. It is intended for Tennessean by Tennessean
McKenzie Steel Director of Marketing and Communications at the Creative Discovery Museum here in Chattanooga. Welcome to Signature Required.
Mackenzie Steele: Thank you for having me.
Spencer Patton: I like your name, McKenzie Steele, like I feel like. That is a great name. Like over an intercom and like a sports arena. Like now on the field, McKenzie Steele, like
Mackenzie Steele: I one time had someone tell me I worked at um, Barnes and Noble for a few years in business development and I one time had someone tell me that I should be like a romance author or something.
Ooh, yes. But it would be a good author name probably because Danielle Steele, I think is also a Roman's author. Yes. It's a leading
Carli Patton: lady's name.
Mackenzie Steele: Let's be real, like it's a lady. That's what she was going, with's name.
Carli Patton: Yeah. Yeah,
Spencer Patton: it does bring a lot of presence to it, so Well, I appreciate that. It just brings extra weight to the podcast today, and we're excited to have you here.
For those that [00:01:00] are just listening that are not visually watching, where are we sitting right now? Because we are not sitting in our studio in Nashville. Sure not. And we're not in a boring office either. Um, so we are in the center of the museum right now, what we call the atrium. This is. The like hub and from here everything that you experience in museum flows.
Mackenzie Steele: So you're, we're right in front of Little Farmhouse, which is our five and under exhibit. One of my personal favorites, my son was one when that exhibit opened in our post renovation, uh, life that we're experiencing here at the museum. And so he was the, um, poster child for the photos when they first came out.
Aw. So I have lots of fond memories of that particular exhibit. But yeah, we're right in the heart of things here in the museum today.
Spencer Patton: For those that just normally listen and don't watch, this is one to actually watch. Yeah. Because you are going to get excellent people watching. Like if the podcast hits a lull, you're gonna see people coming behind us in costumes.
Kids could be grabbing the mics. And the cameras and all the, and, and we're here for it. So,
Mackenzie Steele: absolutely. Yeah. It's, uh, we're embracing the chaos, which is a little bit what we do here every day at CDMI
Carli Patton: [00:02:00] was teasing Spence when we started our company, we had three kids in three years, and when we started our company, we were just about to be pregnant with our third,
Mackenzie Steele: my gosh
Carli Patton: daughter.
And so this is like our original office space. We work best when there's kids running around trying to grab things. It just makes you scrappier. So yeah, absolutely. This feels like home.
Mackenzie Steele: Absolutely.
Spencer Patton: I carry a little bit of personal history with this museum too. Obviously Carly and I are from Nashville, but I love to play tennis and I was in a tennis tournament out in Chattanooga and I had the opportunity on afternoon that I wasn't playing, that my oldest daughter and I were the ones that made the trip.
And we came in to museum having no idea what to expect. I had never been to it before and it really became like one of our favorite father-daughter memories. Love that. And so it's really full circle. It's been a handful of years since we've been, but I love being back here. So for those that haven't had the opportunity to step foot in here though what makes this unique?
Is this. I'm sure you [00:03:00] won't subscribe to this, just another children's museum, but, uh, what's here? Well, the benefit of children's museums at large for people who don't spend a lot of time in them, which up until I had children, I didn't either. Is that everyone is a bit unique, which is really cool.
Mackenzie Steele: Uh, what I love about the museum here with Creative Discovery Museum is how place-based we are. The museum has been around for 30 years. We celebrated our 30th anniversary in 2025. So we've been really enjoying. Going, taking trips down, memory lane, getting a little bit of the history. As a person who's been here for, I've been here about three years so I've gotten a chance to really dig into some of that meat of history.
And there's just some longevity of the museum's life here that makes, being here so special and the exhibits really reflect that. So you have Tennessee River Play for example. It's typically the first exhibit you walk into when you come to the museum. It's our water exhibit. You see it from outside and it's meant to mimic the Tennessee River.
So it's really meant to put you, you're in Chattanooga. This is what it looks like to be in Chattanooga, and also here's [00:04:00] how you can actually touch and feel it. Climb up into the. Climber and go into a hang glider, and you might actually do that off of Lookout Mountain one day. And so there's little pieces of what makes Chattanooga special here in the museum that make it accessible for all ages.
Carli Patton: Now some of your exhibits are permanent, right? Mm-hmm. But then you have rotating exhibits do, how does that work for you guys?
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah, so we have six permanent galleries. They all just actually finished, we completed a capital campaign in 2023 where all of the exhibits got completely renovated, um, in our permanent gallery spaces.
So we have STEM and we have arts. Um, natural history, uh, early childhood that covered those exhibits. And then we also have a temporary gallery space. Um, it's actually behind me over here. But that is a 1800 square foot box essentially. And we get exhibits from all across the country that come in.
And the children's museum space is really interesting. They other children's museums create these, uh, exhibits and then they get shipped here in crates and we. Open them up and install them. Our team, our exhibits and maintenance team [00:05:00] is incredible. And they put 'em up in a week and then they're here for a couple months and then they get packed up and the next thing comes in.
So we typically in the spring do a cultural exhibit. This past spring we had an exhibit all about India and Indian culture. This upcoming in 2026 Spring will have, uh, an exhibit about Italy, which is gonna be really interesting. So we have that in the spring. And then in the summers we do kind of a more blockbuster type of exhibit for tourism and travel.
And in the fall we do something usually a little bit quieter. Um, right now we have xo xo, which is all about. Social emotional learning which is brand new content in the like traveling exhibit space. We don't typically see that. Very interesting and opens up a lot of opportunities for us and staff.
And then we typically also do our own exhibits in there in the falls as well. So cardboard exhibits and things like that, um, that our staff create, uh, internally, which is really impressive. Our team is. Incredibly talented. Um, and that, that gets to get, be showcased some in that space.
Carli Patton: Wait, what constitutes a blockbuster [00:06:00] exhibit?
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah.
Carli Patton: For toddlers, for this like crowd? Yeah. What is your demo for Blockbuster exhibits?
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah, that's a great question. So typically they end up being things that are related to, uh, characters or TV shows or content that you get, you consume. Public media kind of thing. So for example, the first exhibit that we hosted when, um, after renovation when I first started was Doc McStuffins.
Oh, nice. So if you're familiar with the TV show, it's all Disney related. Everything was like teeny tiny size. It was very cute. Very pink and purple and bright. Um, we've had wild craps. Uh, exhibits here before that actually was really cool. It was an ocean themed one, so we got to do a lot of partnership with the aquarium, who are incredible partners with us just down the block.
So you get a little bit of that like IP kind of content in those blockbuster exhibits. They just make them a little more destination worthy. Travel kind of thing,
Carli Patton: so yeah. So it's like the Taylor Swift for the toddler set,
Mackenzie Steele: right?
Carli Patton: Yeah. Okay. I [00:07:00] got it. Just got it. Just making sure I clearly understood you
Mackenzie Steele: Absolutely got
Carli Patton: it.
Yeah. We have the same definition of blockbuster working. Okay, got it.
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah.
Carli Patton: Got it.
Spencer Patton: Carly and I have had the chance to go to a lot of different museums of all different types and children's museums over the years, and there's a really wide bell curve of quality and usually when I go to a children's museum.
I expect probably 70% of the exhibits that I interact with to be broken. They just, they don't work. This, the crap has been kicked out of 'em, basically. And I did not have that experience here. And I'm not just saying that, like if I, if I did have that experience, I wouldn't bring it up. But Can you talk through a little bit of that, because.
There's no harder torture testing than having kids work on any exhibit. But it does seem like you all are intentional about it. So are the Chattanooga kids just easier on the stuff here or are you all very intentional?
Mackenzie Steele: If you ask our [00:08:00] exhibit developers who we work with, um, we worked with a number of different firms when we were doing our renovations.
If you ask them, they would say, Chattanooga kids are harder on. Stuff. So, um, I don't know what was in the sauce when they were here, but we do have a very interesting learning curve on exhibit development, exhibit practice and what we put out and maintenance and going through and kind of adjusting what's needed as well.
So, our maintenance and facilities team, like I said, they are. Amazing. We have some really highly trained staff who know electricity and how things work. All of, so many of the exhibit components now, especially post renovation, are so high tech. Up in our stem zone exhibit, we really we've say we've aged ourselves up a bit.
Prior to renovation, I would say 10, 11 was sort of the age range. Birth to 10 11 was the age range we hit. Now we're getting into that like preteen stage because we have so much high tech equipment up there. You can do basic coding and um, some other things, but also requires. Staff who know [00:09:00] how to deal with anything that breaks.
So we have an incredible STEM team that's up there and working hands on with kids every day and also working behind the scenes to make sure things are functional. But it is a constant war with the equipment to make sure that it's working the way that it's intended to, and that guests are having the best experience they can.
And we are. Always and forever will be. I think learning how that best works and how it works best for our staff too. There's only so many hours in a day. There's only so much time and we're open during the school year, we're closed on Wednesdays so that we actually have time to do deep maintenance and cleaning and all the things that are required in a building like this.
But during the summer, we're open every day, so there's not time to really spend and dedicate. To that like high level of fixing. So we've really had to adapt, uh, our routines and the ways that we maintain thing to make it work for everyone.
Carli Patton: I have to ask though. Yeah. What's the most creative way someone has broken something?
Because this story comes from our oldest daughter, Zoe. We always say she was a sleep terrorist. [00:10:00] That kid would not sleep really until she was seven. And so I gave her one of those wake up clocks that, oh, all of the child scientists said, give your kid this clock that turns green right when it's time to awaken.
And she, like a fairy princess will like, ah, and come out of her room. I came in the next morning just so excited about this clock, and maybe it had worked to see what she was up to, and she had taken the thing to the wires. Our child had opened the clock to see how it worked and how she could change its programming so that she did not have to sleep.
She's gonna be a
Mackenzie Steele: great engineer
Carli Patton: one day. Yes. She's amazing. And my mom always says, you'll really appreciate these things when she is older. So I ask, what is the most creative way that a child has broken one of your exhibits?
Mackenzie Steele: That is a fascinating question and I love the reasoning behind it. I'll say we have so unearthed our dinosaur exhibit for the people who just love Dinos, um, is very beloved and gets lots of wear and tear.
And when we [00:11:00] opened post renovation, we had an entire exhibit component that required it was intended to show how sand and wind interact, so it's like wind tunnel kind of things and it moves sand around. The exhibit. And kids were so like, intense with it and we learned a lot about like what was, and wasn't like really interesting about that component to the point that it just doesn't exist anymore.
Like we just removed it because it wasn't meeting goals that we wanted it to, but also kids were pretty like tough on it in a way that we didn't anticipate and that you really can't experience until you put it. To the test. And that's true of a lot of different things in the, in the exhibits. Our stem zone stuff has changed a lot in component and material and things to make it work for everyone.
But that's the one that comes to mind first for sure. As you've gotten more high tech, how have you balanced that? That pushback, right? Where people come here so their kids aren't on screens, so they aren't pushing buttons. But at the same time, so [00:12:00] much of experience and learning and jobs of the future are technology based, which, so how do you guys navigate that tension point?
Yeah, that's a really great question. We get that question or pushback or feedback from guests sometimes where it's like, oh, I wanted to get away from the screens. Why are we using screens? And I'll also, you get. A pretty well-rounded experience here at the museum. There are definitely opportunities to unplug.
Tennessee River plays a great example with water play where it's just like you're in the water hanging out. Like you get to float the boats down the river and it's like kids in ponchos out there. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. You can get soaking wet. I always advise my friends who come with kids. I'm like.
You'll wanna go to River Play first 'cause it's the easiest one to get to maybe save it for last. If you anticipate your child just splashing water all over themselves, it's almost unavoidable. So you get that really hands-on climbing kind of experience. In some exhibits and then others like STEM zone.
What I love about it is the exposure that kids are given to [00:13:00] so many different opportunities to learn. And through that exposure they might find something that they didn't expect or know they were interested in, and those kind of. The tech is a necessary part of that learning process because, to your point, the growth of that, those industries here in Chattanooga specifically, I mean, every school in every middle and high school, I believe in Chattanooga has an eLab.
They're learning, they're in those labs, they're learning fabrication. They're. Practicing coding, all of those things. So, giving the exposure at developmentally appropriate in developmentally appropriate ways and stages here is something we wanna be like attuned to. And it's also good for our partnerships with those, uh, outside entities to show that we're reflecting the things that they're practicing.
But yeah, I, I love it as a, as a parent myself, I have a 4-year-old. And being able to bring him here and expose him to such a wide variety of things that we wouldn't be able to do at home gives him, like, gives me the ability as a parent to see like, [00:14:00] oh, you're like. Catching onto this coding kind of stuff and being able to take things apart.
My son loves that stuff. I'm like, I can't give you that at home without destroying something. Don't
Carli Patton: give him the clock.
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah, yeah. You don't want that. I love the like, ingenuity of that and also I can't, I'd. My own personal, like heart wouldn't be able to take it. But being able to showcase that a bit here and give him that exposure.
I see it when I'm here and just watching families interact too. It's really cool.
Spencer Patton: I think you can tell a lot about the health of a community by his children's museums. It is really fun to see. Carly and I have been across different states and we'll come into a city and see this. Children's museum that from the outside I'm like, you know, we really should stop whatever we're doing right now and go inside and see what this is.
'cause it's just, it captures all of the playfulness of being a kid still in an adult setting. Yes. And that's why it's so easy for me to come into a [00:15:00] children's museum because. It's so fun. I learn something every single time. Are
Carli Patton: you saying you're still a child in the inside? Is that what you're
Spencer Patton: saying?
Yeah, totally. Absolutely. It, it's just a blast. And I just would love you to highlight some of the ties that the museum has to the community 'cause. You know, there's a children's hospital that is less than a hundred yards away from the front door of this building, and you all do some really special stuff with them.
So can you take a moment to just talk about some of those community ties?
Mackenzie Steele: Absolutely. Um, one of the things that the museum really prides itself on and is dedicated towards, um, uh, in the future and the continued growth of the community as being a community hub for all kinds of organizations and nonprofits and, and.
People at large. So, we do that in a lot of ways. Of course, just our building is a venue in and of itself, and so we often have groups who will come in. We actually have it. A group tonight. This is gonna be putting us in a timestamp of it. But a group that's coming tonight through an organization called Lana's [00:16:00] Love that is dedicated to pediatric cancer.
And, um, it's a local organization started by a family who had a child that had cancer. And they have now grown this as a, a place for resources for families and for parents. Um, in a similar situation, and they're coming tonight because they can't come during the day. Their children are high risk of exposure.
And a children's museum for all we can do to keep it clean is infested with children who we love them and also they can be kind of germy. And so we, um, I just heard overheard staff this morning saying, all right, we're gonna close tonight. And then we are deep cleaning this space from top to bottom.
Because then we're having this group come in and they get to experience the museum with their families the same way that anyone else would on a regular basis, but in a way that's safe and a and welcoming for them. Welcoming is kind of the name of the game for children's museums and definitely for CDM.
So we have lots of opportunities to do those kind of [00:17:00] unique partnerships. You mentioned Erlanger children's Hospital. We're doing some really cool stuff with giving similar access for when families are in town and they need especially if they've got siblings of kids that are in a hospital stay and.
You think about those experiences and kids just being kind of like stuck in a part of childhood that they should have the opportunity to go out and still experience fun and enjoy as a family and, and the museum is a great place to connect. We think about the opportunities to be like a kid as an adult.
That's the whole point. The goal here is for everyone to get to come together and experience learning and fun and play as a family unit and and as a group. And so we're not just saying, Hey, drop your kid off and let them run amok. It's, Hey, come and like do this together. Come make art up in the art studio together.
Come battle robots on the robot table upstairs, together. Go climb up into the tree house and face your fears. Like it's a little scary. It's very tall up there. But it's [00:18:00] worth it to do it together and make memories as a family. And so in whatever ways that we can connect and provide that to different groups in our community, that's the goal.
Carli Patton: And maybe help them forget for a hot minute, everything that they're going through. 'cause that's what these types of experiences do. It as a mom, you forget your to-do list. Right. And if you're going through something as hard as having your kid in the hospital for an extended stay, coming and forgetting about that for just a moment is really priceless.
Spencer Patton: McKenzie, the internal business guy in me always looks at museums with curiosity because as a nonprofit, there is clearly an aspect where you're doing a benefit for the community and you're here to serve. But there's also a very clear aspect that. There's competition for getting people in your doors and not in some other doors of museums, that you have some tough competition right here in Chattanooga.
Like not to [00:19:00] mention the state of Tennessee, but just around. And so how much of your. Thought process as director of Marketing and Communications is collaborative with the other museums to say, Hey, if you're gonna come here and see this also come here. And how much of it is like you're kind of secretly hoping in the basement of the.
Aquarium, that they're like that McKenzie Steel, she's taking all of our children. I wonder what that is like. Yeah. So can you talk about some of that dynamic and how you are with the other museums?
Mackenzie Steele: Absolutely. One of the things I love about Chattanooga as a city, and I've been here for.
Eight years moved from Nashville, actually. I went to school in Nashville and my husband and I graduated and decided we wanted a little bit slower pace in a smaller town, and moved here on a whim and then loved it. And now we've been here for eight years and have a kid and have no plans to leave anytime soon.
But one of the things that drew me to Chattanooga and why I love it so much from a work [00:20:00] and life perspective is the collaborative nature of the city. I have yet to have an experience interacting with any of the attractions in town or what would be considered competition that has been negative or, um.
Or felt like competition. It's a very interesting experience because I talk to colleagues in the children's museum space in other cities who are like, I don't, we don't get it. Like, how do you, us in the aquarium are a great example. We have a very unique relationship. It is very, uh, very collaborative, very friendly. Their marketing team over there is incredibly generous with us and gives us a lot of opportunity to jump in on things that they're doing and vice versa. And I've chatted with friends in other places who are like, I, how did you do that? I'm like, I don't know. It's just always kind of been here and I'm benefiting from it as, as someone who did not necessarily establish that, but is getting to continue it.
And so. I, and I think others in the [00:21:00] tourism space in town would say that if people are coming to town, it's a good thing regardless of how they're getting here and what they're coming for. And if we can get them here, they'll stay and they'll do more. And the benefit of a family friendly town like Chattanooga is that we really are, we rank up there in family friendly attractions.
We were voted best place to take kids in town this year. Like that's that's kind of our shtick. But we. We also know that if they're gonna the aquarium, it's probably a good thing for us too.
Spencer Patton: Yeah there's something true in business too that like I always get off at a interstate exit and you see like five fast food chains, one after another, and you think.
Man, they must hate that, but in fact, they actually are super intentional about clustering together because one member of the family may want something and another person wants something else. But it gives a very compelling reason to say, okay, we're gonna stop at this exit. Which is, is really fascinating.
Now, I don't know of any family. I know it's not our [00:22:00] family that. Would ever allow the kids to go to multiple fast food places at one exit. It's
Carli Patton: like they wish that we would allow
Spencer Patton: them to do
Carli Patton: that. Yeah.
Spencer Patton: We are not that quality of parent, I think. 'cause we're like, we're choosing one place and that is all your
Carli Patton: kids.
That's probably what mom and dad want. And you guys can get on board. Can figure it out.
Spencer Patton: Yeah. Yeah. But I do like to ask that question for people in various museums because there is a part of me that. I hope that someday someone's just gonna get on here and just talk major trash against. No, you don't.
Carli Patton: No, you
Spencer Patton: don't. I'm just kidding. I knew you wouldn't. I knew you wouldn't. But that's a good answer and it makes sense. And, uh, I can appreciate why that draws a lot of people here. And then they can make a better reason to make a multi-day trip out of it rather than just getting pure Chattanooga locals.
Then it's like, okay. We can actually justify a trip there and we can actually do three or four different things. Yeah, and you think of it too, I mean, I think of the museum in like three different buckets of identity. So you have our tourist attraction identity and that is the, like we're really trying to get the drive market [00:23:00] around Chattanooga to come and visit Chattanooga.
Mackenzie Steele: And we want them, we work closely with, I know y'all talked with Sean Phipps over at Chenga Tourism. He's a really great partner and collaborator in the space and, um. And the other major players, we all come to the table and we say, how do we get people to come to Chattanooga and stay and do all of the things and spend all their money?
Like that's a thing that we're constantly having conversation about. You think about in that sense. But then you have your local families, um, that we're like. Become a member, it pays for itself. In two visits, you get unlimited access and early mornings that are just for you and all these other like fun perks.
And you start getting into that like educational institution, brain of like, it's also good for development and these are all the different ways that play is the work of childhood. Like that's what this is. And then the nonprofit wing where then you're like, okay, and also. Donate and we like we all to rely on donations and on fundraising to, to make this what it is.
So it's very, museums I think at large all kind of operate in those three spaces and children's museums just have like a [00:24:00] unique niche within that. That's really interesting.
Spencer Patton: Can you share a little bit about just the stats of how much this museum is paid for by the donations and people that have a heart versus ticket sales?
Like, just some of the, some of the dynamics. I don't know if those things are even public, but can you share some of, of, uh, how the structure of the museum, uh, has come to be?
Mackenzie Steele: So you can think about it this way, that funding for the museum comes from a lot of different like facets. So you have of course your ticket sales, your memberships, purchases are technically a donation to the museum.
That is like a piece of fundraising in a way. We have mid-level flow, mid-level and high level fundraisers that we do as well. So events and things like that are, development team is very intentional about creating opportunities for families to experience the museum in unique settings. For example, an event like PJ's with Santa that we have in the holiday season that's for members but is a little extra ticket price.
And those, that is a. Donation [00:25:00] level type of event because TJ's with Santa, I was gonna say you're, that's adorable. Genuinely speaking to you. Like when is it and Yeah. Yeah. We'll put it on the calendar for, come on back for it. It's in early December. Um, and it is always a good time and Santa is here and hangs out with the kids and it's a blast.
It. So we have things like that. We have adult level fundraisers, so we do shut the museum down to kids and open it just for adults a couple times a year. And those are opportunities for us to engage people who came as a kid and then wanna come back as an adult, but maybe don't have kids yet.
Spencer Patton: Can you talk about that for a second?
Yeah. Because we've seen some museums. We were at the Adventure Science Center in Nashville, and Carly and I have had the chance to go a couple times. And one of our very favorites was a Harry Potter event. Yeah. Where they had all sorts of stuff that brought in the scientific components of various. Concoctions that you could make.
And uh, obviously it was consistent with the theme of Harry Potter and it was a blast. They served alcohol, like it was really adult themed, but, uh, it was super fun. [00:26:00] So can you talk some about what you've been able to lean into? Uh, your mission's a little different, but
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah. But it's very similar in that regard.
So it's really the opportunity to, to do. STEM and science and learning and fun. All for an adult audience, which is fun for our staff too. So our staff are a lot of like young, mid twenties to thirties, especially our like floor staff who really enjoy like getting to have some creative like flex and muscle put into events that are made for their friends and like their audience.
We always do a Halloween drink and discover is what we call them. And so each year that one is always our, like, big marquee one that people really have latched onto and known about. Uh, the theme changes every year. So this one coming up is mad science. So similar a little bit to like the Harry Potter idea of potions and spells and all of that.
They will be doing test tube cocktails and I imagine they'll do a science experiment where something blows up. That usually is the case. And [00:27:00] people come and dress up and they play and it's a whole it's a whole thing we've done. Oh, what are some other good things? We did prom one year. We did prom through the decades.
So we had come and whatever decade prom was either relevant to you or you wish it was relevant to you. And so we've had lots of different, like, fun with theming and like wild West and we had a bull riding machine like in the middle of the museum here. So we definitely go all out on those with an opportunity to say like, this is a really fun way for us to engage an audience.
We don't typically serve in the sense that they seem like they've either aged out of what we currently offer or they haven't yet entered what we do offer for families. But we wanna keep that pipeline continuous too, in a way. Like you wanna keep people engaged and know, like, oh, I grew up at the museum.
I wanna come back as an adult when I have kids, I'm gonna bring them back. Or when my niece and nephew come and visit, we're going to the museum. And that it creates a sense of like, ownership and, um. Perspective on how you keep people [00:28:00] bought in to what we're doing here in the mus in this space. And it's not just for families with children, it's really for everybody.
And having a children's museum in your city has an impact bigger than just on families and kids. It really has an impact on everyone.
Carli Patton: Nostalgia translates to dollars. Like all you have to do is pull up Netflix and it's reliving that nostalgia. I'm here for it. Yes, yes. It makes it much more palatable to have kids when it's reminiscent of your own childhood.
I'd be remiss if I didn't ask on your budget, how much is the gift shop contributing to your budget? Because when the patent kids visit a museum, I feel like they want to make your quarter with what they purchase at a museum. So does it for the parents out there, does it really contribute to your budget or is that just a fun one for all of us?
That as we walk out the door.
Mackenzie Steele: That's a really fun question 'cause we have a really unique relationship, um, with how our gift shop and our cafe are run.
So we don't actually manage those internally, we outsource to them. And because it's hard to run a gift shop in a cafe, they do an [00:29:00] incredible job.
And bringing in new stuff all the time. And when we have themed exhibits, we just had this summer Mo Willem, who's children's book author. I'm also
Carli Patton: obsessed with Mo. Willem, can I just tell you that? Don't let the pigeon drive the bus is just the most iconic.
Mackenzie Steele: So you knuckle
Carli Patton: bunny,
Mackenzie Steele: you missed by about a month?
No, the exhibit that we had for Mo Willems with a massive bus. In the middle of the exhibit had the pigeon bus. Uh, and so a whole exhibit dedicated to the pigeon comes to Chattanooga was technically what it was called. Super cute. And because it's a known entity we had. Stuff in the, we still do actually have stuff in the gift shop that's all lums related.
Equip like, uh, books and plushies and all kinds of fun stuff that they can buy after experiencing their lovely visit to the traveling exhibit. So really like. Interesting and fun partnership with them. And we do get like percentage cutbacks, a, a very nice percentage cutback with them [00:30:00] for both the cafe and gift shop purchases.
So yes, to answer your like baseline question, all of it matters. Every dollar counts. Please spend your money in our gift shop. Please
Carli Patton: go buy Knuffle Bunny in the gift shop. Yes, that would be great. Yes, exactly. There's actually a Plushy Knuffle Bunny, which our daughter Piper was obsessed with that book.
She was really our only one that had a levy. Okay. Growing up. So that book really hit for her, and so that's
Mackenzie Steele: awesome. So while the exhibit was here, fun fact, every Mo Williams character has a birthday, like an actual birth date. And, um, Knuffle bunnies happened to be while the exhibit was here in June, so we had Knuffle Bunny birthday because it's the museum's 30th birthday.
This year we've been finding d. Fun ways to celebrate 30 years Ed. Were like, oh, well we'll celebrate other birthdays too. Let's do nuff of bunny birthday. And it was great. And there was a plushie sitting on our birthday throne that people could come and take pictures with. It was adorable.
Carli Patton: Wait a birthday throne?
That's fun.
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah. Yeah. So the best place in town to have a birthday party is at Creative Discovery Museum. And so we've got birthday party rooms in the back that you get [00:31:00] and you get to reserve, but we have a whole throne that you get to sit on that the kid can do. Open presents. You're saying Happy birthday or
Carli Patton: sorry, hence fourth.
I have a big birthday coming up. I am now requiring a throne. Like I would really prefer if I every year had a birthday throne. Thank you.
Mackenzie Steele: Makes it all better. Every
Carli Patton: I have demands and it includes a birthday throne.
Mackenzie Steele: I love it. We can give you some inspiration. I can show, show
Carli Patton: you. Yeah. I need to go get a picture in it.
Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Sometimes we strike gold with various, museum officials that we get to talk to, to let us in on some of the secrets, some of the things that, you may have been to this place a number of times, but did you know X, Y, and Z? And just as a. Funny story, like we were talking to one of the CEOs of a zoo in Tennessee and I had no idea the amount of engineering, the things that are behind the scenes.
I even had questions like, where do you put all the poop? And it was one of the most popular questions that the podcast has ever seen. It's [00:32:00] like, isn't that the truth? Like you put. Years of your life into this. And at the end of the day, question people ask about poop that most people care about is like, what do you do with all the poop at the zoo?
It's like, okay, I'm glad that I really stood and delivered here. So is there anything that you can help rock somebody's world with maybe a part of the museum they don't know or something that you can do like something unique here?
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah. Yeah. I've got a couple things in mind. One that. Is maybe less known, but very interesting about the museum is that you of course have the building here.
The museum's been here for 30 years for a large portion of that. We've also taken the building. Out of here and out into the community. So we have an entire outreach team. They are certified educators, all former teachers who either are retired or they left the profession for one reason or another. Um, and they now teach with us out in schools, taking lessons that have been thoughtfully curated, a lot of them off of the content in the different exhibits that we have.
And they go out, they go as far as North [00:33:00] Carolina, um, all the way down into Atlanta and take lessons that. Help kids get to experience the museum wherever they are. For a lot of those kids, it's the first time they've ever even had a chance to hear about the museum. And so it gives them a little piece of it until they have a chance to come maybe on a field trip or something like that, like we had this morning.
So it's a very unique arm and they're so unseen in the day-to-day life of the museum. We actually have an entire office building across the street that, um, some of us have office space in, and that's where their work room is, and it is. Massive and it's just stacked with, it's so immaculately organized.
I'm forever impressed by them. Labels on everything and age ranges and buckets with all these different like components that they take with them in our CDM van, which is bright yellow and has the museum's logo all over it. And they take it all over and do some really incredible work out in the community through that.
So that's a fun, like unseen piece.
Spencer Patton: Yep.
Mackenzie Steele: A fun thing that you can come experience at the museum that I think is very unknown is our, [00:34:00] a little friend of ours who lives outside under the grate by the side of the museum. We have a dragon that lives in a underneath the grate and. I'll leave the location a little ambiguous because it's kind of fun to stumble upon it.
But I'll say that my son and I, every time that we walk by, he has to stop at the grate and say goodbye to the dragon as we walk by. And it's, but you will not know that it's there unless you know to look for it. I love
Spencer Patton: a little hidden
Mackenzie Steele: Easter
Spencer Patton: egg,
Mackenzie Steele: a little Easter egg there, but we have some, we had former staff who were, props builders and they used to do like art direction kind of prop building. So they've done a lot of the, like, so much of the building and the like maintenance and um. Exhibit tech that exists in the building is built by our staff, and so they've built a lot of like unique things here. Our creation station logo over where the artwork is done over here was built by a former staff member.
And so a lot of [00:35:00] creatives. I believe this dragon was part of some project many, many, many years ago, and I don't know how, or. Why it lives where it does, but it does.
Carli Patton: That's awesome. In doing research for this podcast, one of the things I was really excited to talk to you about was the kindergarten pass and how you work with Hamilton County to make sure that kindergartners and their families have access.
So could you get us into that a little bit and give us the details?
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah, absolutely. So we have done this for two years now. This coming school year will be our third of this Hamilton County's school's Pass program. The mayor of Hamilton County, mayor of Westin Wamp has a large family of his own and is very invested in the museum and very involved with.
Us as an institution and wanting families to get to experience the museum like his family does and has been, um, a real champion in this program where we work really closely with Hamilton County schools on a number of things. They're fantastic partners. And so this is one piece of that where we, they.
In their [00:36:00] organization, which is unbelievable that there's probably 4,000 kindergartners in the full county Hamilton County schools. And they get a pass to every single one of those kindergartners across all of the schools in the system for a child in their family unit essentially to come and visit the museum for free for their, that first year of kindergarten.
It has been a really incredible program to watch, grow, and, um. For families who really have no other opportunity or access to the museum or may not be familiar with the museum especially those who live in more rural county like Hamilton County's massive and goes very, very far north up into Saudi Daisy and Sail Creek and beyond.
So you're really getting like 30 minutes north of the city of where we are. So getting that far north out. Far East all the way to Awa area into those rural pockets and finding places where families. Just haven't had the opportunity to experience museum. Or maybe they have, but they haven't been in a while.
Giving them the access to come here and understand [00:37:00] that we are a we're a valid partner in education in the school system. And yes, come here and have, and play and connect with your family and grow. And also, this is a piece of learning. It's what learning looks like for kindergartners is play and.
So us being, being able to champion that with the school system has been just a really fun dynamic kind of thing. And we're excited to continue it this school year.
Carli Patton: I'm so glad you said that. Because of our four kids, I have yet to have one and we're done having children. So we do not have any that want to sit down for an extended period of time and be studious and learn something.
We just don't. And I. It could be me as a parent. I for a long time had a little bit of shame where I thought it was me as a parent, like maybe I'm just not teaching them. Well, maybe this is all on me. And I think. We all need to normalize. It's like maybe your kid doesn't wanna sit down, maybe they wanna touch and play.
And if you can get them to read the words on one of your boards, [00:38:00] that is literacy. That is working towards something that we have a huge passion for. Talking about literacy and the importance of learning to read that gets them active and learning those skills and seeing them applied in maybe a way that.
Sitting down Mo Willems, obviously to the side, everyone wants to just read Knuffle Bunny, but that maybe they wouldn't, if you tried to put a big book in front of them, it gets them up and active. And I just think that's a really important message for parents. It's that literacy can take place in all shapes and forms, and one of the biggest one is through play and activity.
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah. It's the beauty of being in an informal education space, right? Yeah. Like we were not confined by the restrictions of. The education system at large is, and the different metrics you have to hit, and all of those things we get to really come alongside and say, okay, now take all of that and blow it up a bit in this space where, um, everything is touchable.
Like one of my favorite things about children's museums in general, you can touch literally everything. Like nothing is off limits in this building. [00:39:00] Um, and that's intentional. It's giving kids as much access to being right in the thick of things and putting their hands on it. Sticky learning is another like term that's used a lot, but and there's a statistic, and I don't know it off the top of my head, but about the amount of the percentage that you retain by playing with something.
Mm-hmm. And using your hands and getting into it, especially at a young age versus sitting and reading it in a book. And both are valid and both are important. But I feel similarly to you with the, the parenting struggle of, man, I really just want my. 4-year-old to sit and enjoy this activity for more than five minutes.
And, but they
Carli Patton: don't, no,
Mackenzie Steele: he just won't. And that's fine. But appreciating that as a, like, part of his development that he's just, he's ready to go and experience all the things all the time. Mm-hmm.
Spencer Patton: Mackenzie Chattanooga's face. Is changing a bunch. There is crazy amounts of development businesses moving here.
All sorts of stuff that Chattanooga is on the map in a [00:40:00] nationwide level that it has never been. And so can you talk some about what 30 years means that you all were here before it was cool to be here and just some of the other highlights for. Probably most of our listeners that have never been to Chattanooga what they will see if they were to come here.
Mackenzie Steele: Absolutely. 30 years of chat of Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga is a pretty big mile marker. When you think of what happened 30 years ago in Chattanooga, the mid nineties was a huge revitalization of some things happening downtown, specifically. And the. The prior designations of the city as being dirty city and all of these different things that really leadership came in and said, no, we want downtown to be a place to be.
And so of course the aquarium opened in, I believe, 1992. And we came along in 1995 and really changed the face of this downtown corridor. Um, for families in particular to be able to come and actually. Be down here, stay down here, feel safe, and and maneuver about between our different attractions [00:41:00] here.
And that's only continued to grow in the early two thousands. There was the 21st Century Riverfront project that was us in the aquarium, in the Hunter Museum and really saw some facelift of the Riverfront Park project here that is right along the Tennessee River which we have such beautiful access to.
It's just a couple blocks walk. I actually will do it sometimes on my lunch break. And we're, so we saw that happen in the early two thousands. Now we're seeing it again. Now with the new project to see that park, the riverfront parks kind of elevated even more. So there's some really cool plans with public park space and kids play space and things that we're really excited to be a part of.
Um, and in conversation with other groups in town and. Hoping to have, uh, some visual connection between what we have going on here at the building and what's going on downtown as a connector for this Chestnut Street corridor that happens here. Um, that's a little unknown to I think families, especially people who who live here but don't necessarily spend a whole lot of time downtown.
Spencer Patton: Oh, McKenzie, the way that we end each [00:42:00] podcast is with a short sentence with a blank at the end. Uh, so if you'll repeat the prompt back to me. And then fill it in with the word or short phrase that you think completes the thought. Okay. All right, here we go. Number one, what I hear most from parents after they visit the museum is blank.
Mackenzie Steele: What I hear most from parents after they visit the museum is the joy on their kids' face experiencing this place. Yeah. Living a children's museum, not only through your own eyes, but the eyes of your children. It is magic. It really is. Yeah. And I, I love giving fam like adults the opportunity to come and experience it by themselves.
But there is something really special and like lightning magic in a bottle, if you will, of seeing your child. Interact with something they've never done. My son played in the art space. He went into the dance room for the first time a few months ago [00:43:00] and we just hadn't really spent much time in there.
And it's, you push a button and there's mirrors and then a projection shows video of a different styles of dance. And there's one that is musical theater and it's a group of three boys and he spent 30 minutes in there. Learning that choreography. And I was like, I never in my life would've expected him, who is like big into trucks and race cars and all the things and he loves music and all that stuff too.
But I just never would've expected him to like latch onto something like that. It's, it was an eyeopening experience for me as a parent, and I think parents get that opportunity to see that with their children here every day.
Spencer Patton: Yeah. Number two, in the next few years I'm most excited. For the CDM to blank
Mackenzie Steele: in the next few years, I'm most excited for Creative Discovery Museum to build on the partnerships that are starting right now.
Carli Patton: Cliffhanger.
Mackenzie Steele: [00:44:00] Yeah.
Spencer Patton: And number three, the Creative Discovery Museum's impact on Chattanooga is blank.
Mackenzie Steele: Creative Discovery Museum's impact on Chattanooga is lifelong memory making for families.
Spencer Patton: What a great answer.
Mackenzie Steele: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: McKenzie Steele, it's been great to have you on the podcast. Your spirit is really clear and shines through in our time together that in choosing someone for director of marketing and Communications, you've gotta have the right person for a children's museum That.
Can go with the flow and have catapults exploding in the background here and all sorts of stuff that are just everyday life for you, and I really appreciate that spirit shines through. You said it best, the memories that. You have been a part of creating here, uh, are ones that families will carry with them their whole life.
Uh, [00:45:00] and us too. Uh, I carry a personal memory from here, so thank you for being on our podcast and all you do.
Mackenzie Steele: Well, thank you for having me. It was blessed.
