The Museum creates original exhibits that open in Fort Worth then travel to children's and science museums across the nation, seen by millions. Current traveling exhibits include Joshua's Journey, Risk!, and CSI: The Experience.
EXHIBIT FIELD TRIPS
As you enter the building you will be standing under what renowned architect Ricardo Legorreta calls the Urban Lantern. It is a 76-foot-tall feature with 97 glass panels at the top. When the LED and florescent lights are switched on, this glowing beacon will guide visitors to the city and the Museum.
On the first floor you will find the following exhibits and amenities: Innovation Gallery & Studios, the Fort Worth Children’s Museum, special exhibit Tinkering, Energy Blast, DinoLabs and DinoDig®, Shop Too!, and the Stars Café. The second floor features the Cattle Raisers Museum, the Fort Worth History Gallery featuring Let’s Take The Streetcar: Journeying Through Fort Worth’s Past, the Native American Gallery, and our traveling exhibit CSI: The Experience.
FAST FACTS
Field trips available: February 8, 2010 through May 28, 2010
To book: Group Services: 817-255-9440
Group size: 12 students per group
Fee: $ 5.00 per student
Required Chaperones: PK-K: 1 adult/6 students; Grades 1-12: 1 adult/10 students
FIRST FLOOR
Innovation Gallery
Grade Level: 3 -12
Look up and what do you see? A 45-foot lighted hanging sculpture made of repurposed objects, creating an enchanting and inspiring piece of art that will ignite the imaginations of the young and old.
From there you will want to invent, doodle, design, imagine and explore in the Museum’s Innovation Studios! These studios are surrounded by glass providing opportunities for tinkering with technology; delving deep into science concepts through hands-on activities; combining art and science in imaginative ways and viewing history artifacts from our collections presented in unique settings. In addition, the highly visible studios will house educator workshops; a state-of- the-art Distance Learning studio for presentations of our award winning programs to public school classrooms; hands-on demonstrations; performance art and more. This space is developmentally appropriate for audiences age eight and older. You and your students won’t want to miss this engaging gallery.
The Fort Worth Children’s Museum
Ages: 8 and under
The new Fort Worth Children’s Museum gallery encourages students second grade and younger to experience the joy of discovery. Thematic areas include Healthy Kids where students may role play in the ambulance, scan their height, examine X-rays and care for infants in their bassinets. Grocery shopping will build critical thinking skills as they make choices, sort and classify. They will build mathematical competency as they count, identify and match objects. The Construction area allows experimentation with building blocks and train tracks. In the Natural Science area students may explore specimens from the Museum’s rich collections. Students may also explore almost 4,000 square feet of outdoor space including Water Works and Build a House, designed in a secure environment with special cushioned flooring that is safe for all. A visit to the Fort Worth Children’s Museum will offer learning opportunities as children play and create lifelong memories of their best field trip ever.
Energy Blast
Energy Blast will provide opportunities for visitors to learn more about and increase their understanding of the large natural gas reservoir that resides under North Texas known as the Barnett Shale. Your journey will begin as you view a 4-D film about the origin of the Barnett Shale and the technology necessary to extract it. Hands-on activities will showcase the technology and science necessary to produce and distribute this natural resource. The Energy Challenge area will showcase the costs and benefits of a number of energy sources and the challenges and changes that will occur to meet our future energy needs.
DinoLabs
Greeted by Paluxysaurus jonesi, you and your students will learn about North Texas’ prehistoric past. In DinoLabs guests will have the opportunity to use the scientific processes to discover dinosaur fossils at field sites, analyze fossils in a laboratory setting and create images of what dinosaurs may have looked like. You will also examine fossil and cast specimens of several native dinosaur species that lived in this area between 112 and 95 million years ago. This exhibit also features three life-sized articulated skeletons including Tenontosaurus, a small plant-eating ornithopod, and our state dinosaur, Paluxysaurus jonesi.
DinoDig®
DinoDig returns in a new setting, a model of the Jones Ranch dig site in North Texas, the site where Paluxysaurus jonesi was found. In this interactive area, students will become “paleontologist for a day” as they learn how to find fossils, document their location, carefully dig them up, and securely pack them for transportation to the lab.
Collection Showcases
The Collection Showcases will provide visitors a small glimpse of the Museum’s extensive collection of artifacts and specimens. The Museum will open with showcases exhibiting Kachinas; Texas butterflies and moths; bird eggs; antique toys; Native American pottery; fossils and modern seashells; recycling; cameras; and historical World War I aviation artifacts. The showcases will be changed periodically throughout the year.
Aviation
Aviation highlights the Royal Canadian Air Corps and Fort Worth during World War I. Arriving during the fall of 1917, Canadian pilots trained at three air bases—North Richland Hills, Benbrook and Everman—until they departed for the European War in April 1918. U.S. Army pilots trained at the fields until the war ended in November 1918. The collection includes uniforms, instruments, pictures and a half-scale model of a “Curtiss JN-4 Can” biplane, or “Jenny” as it was affectionately known.
Special Exhibition
Tinkering
Tinkering blends together a collection of experiences that supports and encourages open-ended exploration, social learning and whimsical play. It creates an environment where children and adults can engage at their own pace in experiences that relate to their sense of play and curiosity. The exhibit supports inventiveness, creativity and critical thinking in science, mathematics, technology and engineering.
SECOND FLOOR
The Cattle Raisers Museum
The Cattle Raisers Museum, a “museum within a museum,” immerses guests in the dynamic history and science of the cattle and ranching industry. It is dedicated to telling the story of the Cattle Raisers Association and the history of that industry within Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma thorough interactive exhibits. The exhibit traces the origins and cultural phenomena in the 1850’s and embarks on a journey through the cattle industry past, present and future. The interactive gallery tells the story of the challenges and accomplishments of Texas and Southwest cattle raisers over the last 150 years.
Fort Worth History Gallery
The Fort Worth History gallery opens with Let’s Take the Streetcar: Journeying Through Fort Worth’s Past. The first of a changing stream of stories about the region, it tracks the history of city and interurban rail travel in Fort Worth from the mid 1870s to the mid 1930s. The exhibit tells the story of the influence of rail travel on the settlement and development of the city as the streetcar travels to five areas: Spring Palace; Northside Rosen Heights; Lake Como and Camp Bowie; the TCU area; and Stop Six/Handley, Lake Erie and the Interurban.
Native American Gallery
In this gallery the Museum of Science and History, in partnership with the Houston Museum of Natural Science, presents artifacts from the Gordon W. Smith North American Indian Collection. Artifacts include a leather rattler given to Smith as a child-the first piece he acquired; painted story bison skins of the Sioux and exquisite War Bonnets created by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians.
Special Exhibition
CSI: The Experience
Grade level: 5 - 12
CSI: The Experience immerses students in hands-on science while leading them through the challenge of solving a crime mystery. The interactive exhibit brings to life fundamental scientific principles, numerous scientific disciplines, and the most advanced technology and techniques used by crime scene investigators and forensic scientists. Through hands-on activities featuring real equipment and multimedia presentations, students will sample science fields including: DNA identification, toxicology, forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, forensic pathology, forensic art, forearm and tool-mark identification, information technology, latent prints and blood spatter. In so doing, they’ll learn the significance of each field in cracking the crime.
Special Event:
National Engineers Week
February 14-20, 2010
Free with students' exhibit admission
Don't miss this annual celebration of engineering! Students create, construct and test alongside local engineers and learn more about exciting fields of engineering.
