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What's On At The Museum
We want the Durango Discovery Museum to be a welcoming place for you and your family.
Our team is dedicated to developing and “evolving” hands-on, interactive science + energy exhibits for all ages. We’re also committed to reaching out to the many communities in our region, so look for signs and programs in Spanish and English, as well as in Southern Ute. Over time, we will offer science learning and fun in many more languages.
What better place to discover the science behind electricity than inside a historic AC power plant? Or how about unlocking the amazing secrets of photosynthesis by climbing a life-sized eTree? And imagine putting the power of the sun in your hands, at the helm of a giant sun portal—the Helius. All this and much more is taking shape inside the Powerhouse: earth science, energy, and environment programs from NASA on a huge 3D Mediasphere, a “Spark Shop” where you can build a working robot, a daring mini-lab that guides you through a DNA self-extraction...
The Durango Discovery Museum is ready for generations of budding scientists and energy explorers. Are you ready for the Durango Discovery Museum?
Discovery Kids Zone
Discovery Kids Zone is an interactive play area built just for kids ages 4 and under. It is designed to spark creativity and nurture novel methods of interaction between caregivers and children. For 15 years the museum has provided innovative, experiential, and unique learning opportunities for children and families, as well as a small, quiet space for bonding and interaction.
Discovery Kids includes: an art table and giant see-through easel at the light table with colored shapes; sand; large foam blocks; manipulate textured rubber balls; puppet population; mirrors; and an oversized abacus. A nest-building exhibit encourages kids to use their strength and creativity to construct, organize, and build nests out of large Styrofoam tubes. And a rainstorm simulation exhibit sounds and feels just like standing in a cool spring rain—without getting wet.
NEW: Science StoryTime! Fridays at 9:30am; $3 members, $4 soon-to-be-members.
Mensch Spark Shop
The Mensch Spark Shop is an interactive zone within the Discovery Museum where scientists young and old can discover, explore and analyze scientific and engineering concepts for themselves. This zone fosters critical and serious thinking, concentration and focus, and challenges problem-solving skills.
Activities available at the Mensch Spark Shoare planned and scheduled on a quarterly basis. The 2011 opening themes are Robotics, Make-it-Take-it-Take-it-Apart, and Cells. The museum supplies the tools, reference materials, and expertise, and the visitor explores, learns, and has fun—for hours.
Also, the Mensch Spark Shop hosts biweekly guest speakers/demonstrators related to the current theme. Check the event calendar for upcoming speakers. The Spark Shop is also home to the biweekly Cerebral Challenge question, a difficult question related to science, math and/or engineering that seriously tests mental sparkitude!
WOW! @ the POW!
WOW! @ the POW! is Durango Discovery Museum's new stage demonstration program. These demonstrations will illustrate scientific principles through amazing live experiments! Come watch, participate and learn in these fun-for-all-ages eye-popping, jaw-dropping live performances!
Be sure to check out our Stage Demonstrations page to see the current demonstrations and show times.
Touch Carts
The more richly layered the experience, the better the exhibit; the better rounded the mix of exhibits, the better the museum. In keeping with our theme “Energy—Past, Present, and Future,” and given the space available, interactive exhibit content is augmented with guided labs at "touch carts," mobile tables that offer ever-changing STEM-oriented themes and displays.
Activity Centers
Information to come.
Exhibits
Due to an urgent financial and great community need to open the museum as soon as possible, in part as a response due to the Great Recession, the museum has installed only some of the planned exhibits for the Powerhouse. To fill the floor plan and create a high quality visitor experience, the museum has rented four science exhibits from Creative Machines until more funding is raised to complete the energy and historic related exhibits.
Powerhouse Theater
Every day the 50-seat Powerhouse Theater offers patrons opportunities to view or participagte in science content. Museum demonstrators present the wonders of scientific phenomena from a stage, and the audience is invited to ask questions and help with presentations. The large-format screen is also a dynamic tool that offers fun and informative films that always entertain and leave the audience with "how'd they do that" curiosity.
