Museums Discovery Centre

Join us tomorrow for a very special curator tour exploring the Douglas Mawson collection and the legacy of his Antarctic missions, for the Sydney Science Festival.

Bring your little explorer along for a fun, social activity designed to enhance curiosity and creativity! MAAS Tinies is designed for mobile babies to 2 years.

Explore the Douglas Mawson collection and learn about the legacy of his Antarctic missions, discover innovations in transport and see historic and rare botanical models. This tour, led by Assistant Science Curator Nina Earl, celebrates Australia’s science and innovation legacy.

Explore objects that have impacted on the life and death of people around the world. Delve into life and death in art, design, technology, science, mythology and above all, stories of the human experience.
This event is part of History Week, the annual, state-wide celebration of history organised by the History Council of New South Wales.

MAAS Tinies uses play based learning to engage and excite your little one. These fun, play focused sessions include song, movement and making, as well as hands-on interaction with the Museum’s Education Collection. Bring your little explorer along for a fun, social activity designed to enhance curiosity and creativity! MAAS Tinies is designed for mobile babies to 2 years.

Join us for a playful session for curious creators and their carers that brings applied arts and sciences to life. MAAS Minis is designed for children aged 3 – 5 years.

Discover your inner designer in the MDC Design Studio this school holidays!
Get inventive at our drop-in space where you can design, make and rework your very own creations. Jump on one of our sewing machines and make fabric artworks. Create your own hat or costume drawing inspiration from bicycles to beetle wings or any of the millions of objects in our collection. Or build your own clay structures to bring your ideas to life!

Time is running out to secure a spot in our all-day digital workshops these school holidays - register now to avoid disappointment!

We love this awesome review from Busy City Kids!

See and experience more of our vast collections as you embark on a guided tour of the Deep Stores. Typically the domain of our specialist staff, including curators, scientist and conservators, these tours will give the rare opportunity to see collections not on display.

Join the lively, engaging 15 STARS COOK ISLAND troupe to try your hand at Pacific drumming and experience their graceful, energetic, interactive dance performance. This Sunday only at 11.30am and 1.30pm

This Saturday, help celebrate Free Museum Weekend by joining Ngurra Mariyung – Camp Emu, 11:00am-3:00pm.
The mariyung, maugrai, dinnawan, nguruny (or what you may know as `emu’) is an important animal to many different First Nations groups. Learn about its cultural use in adornment, dance and food with hands-on workshops led by the Australian Museum's First Nations Team.

Join this school holiday workshop and learn to master electrical circuits with our Snap-on challenges - bookings essential.

Peek behind the scenes at the hidden wonders of the Australian Museum's18,000,000-strong collection with the Australian Museum Collection Tour. Discover how conservation experts manage the precious, oversized and occasionally strange objects in their care. Limited capacity is available, bookings essential via https://bit.ly/2JQlq2l
11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, Saturday 23 June only. This tour is part of the Free Museum Weekend. General entry tickets are available via https://bit.ly/2tlvB3S

Enjoy a visit to the Museums Discovery Centre for FREE this weekend! We're taking part in Free Museum Weekend 2018, and still have tickets left for both Saturday and Sunday - book quickly to avoid missing out!

The Museums Discovery Centre will be closed on the Queen's Birthday public holiday, Monday 11 June.

Enjoy a FREE weekend of celebration, discovery and exploration though the collections of the Museums of Applied Arts and Sciences, Australian Museum and Sydney Living Museums in the Museums Discovery Centre. Enjoy live and interactive discovery stations, behind the scenes tours of the deep stores, collection-specific tours, performances, workshops and presentations by Australian Museum’s First Nations experts. Bookings are essential, click below for details.

Ever wanted to know how the experts prepare and mount artworks for display? Come along to this one day workshop and learn the fundamentals for the care and display of artworks and documents.

Coming soon - Reverse TeachMeet: at this TeachMeet young people present their expertise and ideas to paint a picture of how school life can be better. The Museums Discovery Centre opens up its display stores and Ideation Lab for an afternoon of presentations, mini-workshops and conversation led by learners themselves!
Meet inspiring young people and their teachers from local schools, as well as educators from the MAAS Learning team.

I am very disappointed with the MAAS minis program. The staff are friendly and patient. However, the program itself is the least educational we have ever done, it is like a free-play craft time that my 4yo daughter can do at home by herself, it should be charged $5 instead of $15. All the mums pretty much did everything with the children n the program at the end mentioned the material names. The time was up before my girl finished her simple product, she only had time to explore half of the things in the room. It is pretty much like a playgroup setting. The big thing my daughter learnt is the term " designer".

I am very disappointed with the MAAS minis program. The staff are friendly and patient. However, the program itself is the least educational we have ever done, it is like a free-play craft time that my 4yo daughter can do at home by herself, it should be charged $5 instead of $15. All the mums pretty much did everything with the children n the program at the end mentioned the material names. The time was up before my girl finished her simple product, she only had time to explore half of the things in the room. It is pretty much like a playgroup setting. The big thing my daughter learnt is the term " designer".

Terrific place. Not big but still explorable with varieties of items displayed. Kids love it and always want to visit again.

A great place to help kids explore. Accommodating and not very busy. Parking can be difficult at times.

Wide range if objects on display in a fairly compact area- very interesting

I don't think it was very kid friendly as the labels weren't that informative and there wasn't anything interactive. I just thought it would have those things since this museum is connected with the powerhouse museum. There is a wide collection of interesting items and the tour guides are great if you can get one. It is a very new, clean and is a reasonably sized museum but I think Sydney has a few better museums than this one.

Also note, there is some parking on sit although it says there isn't on the website (especially a few handicap spots).

I have taken my family here on a number of occasions over the years.
There are enough items for everyone to see and be interested in and because this museum changes their items on display, there is often something new to see if you visit more than once.

I am very disappointed with the MAAS minis program. The staff are friendly and patient. However, the program itself is the least educational we have ever done, it is like a free-play craft time that my 4yo daughter can do at home by herself, it should be charged $5 instead of $15. All the mums pretty much did everything with the children n the program at the end mentioned the material names. The time was up before my girl finished her simple product, she only had time to explore half of the things in the room. It is pretty much like a playgroup setting. The big thing my daughter learnt is the term " designer".

I am very disappointed with the MAAS minis program. The staff are friendly and patient. However, the program itself is the least educational we have ever done, it is like a free-play craft time that my 4yo daughter can do at home by herself, it should be charged $5 instead of $15. All the mums pretty much did everything with the children n the program at the end mentioned the material names. The time was up before my girl finished her simple product, she only had time to explore half of the things in the room. It is pretty much like a playgroup setting. The big thing my daughter learnt is the term " designer".