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Welcome to Discovery Center ~ Great Lakes!

Discovery Center~Great Lakes is the shared home of four of the regions dynamic and important nonprofit organizations: the Maritime Heritage Alliance, Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, Great Lakes Children’s Museum and future home to part of the sailing program directed by Traverse Area Community Sailing.

Beginning in 2012, the Tall Ship Company will operate its sailing adventures from the Discovery Center aboard the 114 foot schooner Manitou as an affiliate business partner. For more information about cruises on the Manitou, visit the Traverse Tall Ship website.

The mission of Discovery Center ~ Great Lakes: to create and maintain a collaborative educational facility where children, youth, and adults can learn the value of historic preservation, the importance of environmental stewardship, the joy of discovery, and the pleasure of water-based recreation as well as to provide support to the member water-related charitable organizations for their respective operations and missions.

• The Maritime Heritage Alliance supports an active workshop for historic boat building as well as a sailing mentoring program for youth.
• The eco-friendly offices of the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay offer information on how to get involved with watershed protection including the Adopt-a-Stream program and volunteer water quality monitoring in the Grand Traverse Bay area.
• The Great Lakes Children’s Museum, which serves 25,000 visitors per year, offers two galleries of hands-on, water-related exhibits for children and their families, as well as various programs throughout the year.
• Traverse Area Community Sailing has future plans to use the bayfront for intermediate sailing instruction. Currently they offer beginning sailing instruction for youth ages 8-17 and adults on Boardman Lake.

We continue to plan learning opportunities for the future. Together, we are working to make Discovery Center ~ Great Lakes a place where area non-profit organizations dedicated to water related issues can come together and share resources. We are working to create an educational center that will awaken a sense of wonder by encouraging understanding and stewardship of the Grand Traverse Bay. In the process we hope Discovery Center will become a site that will be one of the areas leading cultural, educational and recreational attractions.