Patricia Skelly, director of Merrill-Palmer Institute's Child Development Laboratory, is pleased to welcome Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to speak to the lab's class of three and four year-old preschoolers to culminate their month-long celebration of Black History Month on Thursday, March 7 at 9:30 a.m.

The Child Development Laboratory is located on 87 E. Ferry, near John R, in Detroit.

All the children at the Child Development Laboratory have been working hard on a variety of projects for Black History Month, Skelly said. The students' projects ranged from making a bus out of a cardboard box to commemorate Rosa Parks' history-making incident that sparked a bus boycott and eventually integrated bus service in Montgomery, Ala. to making peanut butter in honor of scientist and inventor George Washington Carver.

The Child Development Laboratory is open to all local children. The students typically come from diverse backgrounds reflective in part of the local neighborhood and Wayne State's campus population. Among the students are Christine Beatty's two children, Skelly said. Beatty is Mayor Kilpatrick's Chief of Staff.

The Child Development Laboratory is designed and operated as an education and care facility for young children with maximum access and resources provided for conducting research, which harmonizes with children's ongoing learning and development. It offers education for children from 12 months to kindergarten age.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 14 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.