Destination: Seedlings at Marbles Kids Museum

Case in point: Seedlings, the latest permanent exhibit to open at Marbles. Seedlings opened over the Thanksgiving holiday. The greenhouse exhibit offers up opportunities for kids to pretend to plant, tend and grow fruits and vegetables.

The goal, said Taylor Rankin, senior marketing and communications specialist, is to show kids where their food comes from and help them develop an appreciation for cooking to encourage good choices throughout their lives. Rankin said the museum's other exhibits and programs that focus on food and cooking already are popular.

"They've been so popular and so well received," Rankin said. "This is an opportunity to add more programs."

The exhibit sits in a room that is across from Marbles' popular pirate ship and just inside Marbles' outdoor garden, SunSprouts. Both SunSprouts and Seedlings are sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. The outdoor garden is open all year. Right now, you'll find kale, Brussels sprouts and collard greens growing, among other things. But, on cold, rainy or really hot days, it's not so inviting.

Seedlings, said Chris Alexander, Marbles' director of exhibits, "will allow us to extend the play inside."

The exhibit took shape after several months of "play testing" over the summer. Construction took about four weeks. Now, the auxiliary space, which was once used sometimes for birthday parties, will be open all of the time.

There, you'll find an actual greenhouse, which will be home to plants at various stages in the growing process, along with compost. There also are kid-sized pretend tables where they can plant, grow and pick food. The space also has a small refrigerator and sink for food programs and pop-up cooking classes.

"We want to be able to show kids the whole cycle," said Michelle Lyon, kids gardener and production artist, who made many of the props and play items by hand.

The space is super sweet, with all new floors, cabinets and a painted ceiling. Large-scale fruit and vegetable graphics - some 3D - decorate the wall. There also are all kinds of pretend produce props, seed packets, mulch bags and garden tools, including small wagons, watering cans, gloves and trowels. Doors lead out to the garden, directly from Seedlings. Rankin said they're already seeing more traffic between the two as kids make the connection between the real plants growing outside and the imaginary ones inside.