Thanks to a newly awarded $2.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the Children’s Museum of Atlanta begins work on a multi-dimensional project that empowers young children and their caregivers to discover, explore and strengthen key character strengths—including compassion, neighborliness, perseverance, curiosity and critical thinking—inside and outside the Museum walls.

This grant is funded through Fostering Character Through Children’s Museums, a Lilly Endowment initiative designed to help children’s museums develop new or expand existing efforts that explore and encourage the development of positive character traits among children and youth.

“This generous support from Lilly Endowment is a game-changer,” said the Museum’s Executive Director Edwin Link. “It’s an opportunity to not only expand what we do already, but to reimagine how children’s innate character strengths can flourish through joy, play and connection—ultimately impacting future generations for years to come.”

A central feature of the plan is a bold, immersive exhibit built around a 22-foot-tall friendly robot, collaboratively constructed by children and their caregivers. Designed to promote multisensory learning and encourage meaningful dialogue between children and adults, the exhibit will spark curiosity and engagement around core character themes. The exhibit will let families explore their character strengths in an immersive play environment, workshops will give caregivers more tools and allow families to practice their strengths with facilitated support and the digital resources empowers caregivers to keep the learning going at home.

The Museum’s new initiative is rooted in early childhood education best practices and the “caught, taught and sought” framework for character development. That framework states that children can learn character through playful experiences, by observing and modeling behavior, via explicit instruction, and by pursuing their own goals to learn more. The new Museum project emphasizes caught methods by providing informal learning for children and taught methods via workshops and resources that help parents and other caregivers continue the conversation. The Museum’s interactive workshops will support learning through proven early education practices, including repetition, games, story time, call and response, playful singing and play-based activities. Through interactive caregiver-child workshops and an accessible online resource library, the nonprofit organization will provide a playful and community-informed approach to help families build lifelong character strengths together.

The Museum is one of 23 children’s museums nationally to receive funding through Lilly Endowment’s Fostering Character Through Children’s Museums initiative.

“Children’s museums are places where children of all ages can learn informally, discovering new ideas through play, multi-sensory experiences and self-expression,” said Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for education and youth programs. “We are excited to see how the museums funded through this initiative will help children and their families to explore various character traits and reflect together on ways these traits can be practiced and strengthened.”

The effort marks a new phase in the Museum’s mission to change the world by sparking every child’s imagination, sense of discovery and learning through the power of play. By bringing the exploration of character strengths to the forefront of its exhibits, programs and resources, Children’s Museum of Atlanta seeks to foster resilience, empathy and connectedness across the families it serves.