[light upbeat music] [light upbeat music continues] Right now I'm with Megan Ward, the executive director of the Nido & Mariana Qubein Children's Museum in High Point.

Megan, this place is spectacular.

What are kids and adults saying when they visit?

- Well, we're happy to have you here.

As soon as they come in, we see a look of wonder and excitement and kids start jumping the second they come in.

And the adults will check in and the kids take off.

They go toward our climber, to our train table, whatever it is, they can't stop moving.

- I can believe it.

When I stepped in, my eyes were full of wonder too.

Megan, sometimes when you hear the word museum, it feels a little stodgy, but this place is full of energy.

- I agree.

Museum does not quite show what we have here.

There's nothing to walk around and look at here.

It is all hands-on, everything can be played with.

- [Deborah] In addition to the fun though, I understand there's a STEM aspect?

- Yes, we call it our STEAM lab, which stands for science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

So we include arts in there.

We have an art studio upstairs, and every day, we provide a couple of pop-up experiments where we are doing different STEM activities and then they are also building things.

They're building cars and racing them.

They're building things to float in our air tubes.

Lots of Legos.

I mean just a sea of Legos up there.

And then we have other places that might be a little bit more fun for our big kids.

So 12 year old, 13 year olds that might be, might be a little bored at a children's museum, there's plenty for them to do here.

We have our Hall of Mysteries, which is like an escape room where you don't have to escape.

We see a lot of families working together to solve these mysteries, and there's a sense of accomplishment that they find the answers to these questions.

- [Deborah] I love that.

I also love that there's the play at life stations.

You've got the fire engine and the grocery store.

What are some of the other places?

- So we have WHPU, which is a TV production studio, and we really thought that we would have to teach kids how to use this, but we never do.

They come in there, they know what to do, they read the news and so they could be reporting from a Rockers game or telling about the weather, and even reporting from Mars what the weather is from Mars.

And they can take that video, send it to the editing desk, edit it, put an intro and an ending, and email it to themselves.

- [Deborah] That is so cute.

Megan, also, there's been great consideration for inclusion.

- We are a Certified Autism Center, which means all of our staff has been trained and we are very aware of the different needs that children might have when they come in here.

It can be very overwhelming.

It's a big space.

They can be, some days we have larger crowds, and some kids can be sensitive to noise, sights, even smells.

So we try to prepare families before they come.

There are different ways on our website that they can navigate, learn how to navigate the space, look at ways and know what to expect when they get here.

- [Deborah] Megan, you guys have not been open that long, maybe just a year and a half.

What's been the impact on the greater community?

- Well we have been so excited to welcome so many people.

We were hoping in our first year that we might have maybe 60,000 visitors.

We had 200,000 in our first year, and we were just awarded the North Carolina Visitor Attraction of the Year by the North Carolina Travel Industry Association.

- Awesome.

Megan, it's all so very exciting.

What's in the future?

- [Megan] We're gonna keep getting better.

We're gonna expand our programming.

We've got a lot of plans coming up for that.

And events.

And then we might look at another expansion coming soon.

- Ooh, well it all sounds wonderful and I wish you the best in the future and I can't wait to see more of the museum.

- Thank you.

- The Nido & Mariana Qubein Children's Museum is at 200 Qubein Avenue in High Point, and they're open Tuesday through Sunday.

For more information, give them a call at [336]888-7529, or go online to qubeinchildrensmuseum.org.