Science Museum of Minnesota

Science Museum of Minnesota is an American museum focused on topics in technology, natural history, physical science, and mathematics education. Founded in 1907 and located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution is staffed by over 300 employees and is supported by hundreds of volunteers.

History

The museum was formed during a luncheon in 1906 when Charles W. Ames, a prominent businessman, met with a group and discussed "the intellectual and scientific growth of St. Paul". The museum, originally named the St. Paul Institute of Science and Letters, was first located at the St. Paul Auditorium on Fourth Street. In 1909, the St. Paul School of Fine Arts (now known as the Minnesota Museum of American Art) briefly merged with St. Paul Institute.

In 1927, the museum moved to Merriam Mansion on Capitol Hill, the former home of Col. John Merriam. This move provided more storage space for exhibits. As the Science Museum continued to outgrow its facilities, it moved to the St. Paul-Ramsey Arts and Sciences Center at 30 East Tenth Street in 1964. In 1978, this expanded across a skyway into a new space on Wabasha between 10th and Exchange, greatly increasing exhibit space and adding an IMAX Dome (OMNIMAX) cinema.

In the early 1990s, plans for a new and more modern facility, to be located adjacent to the Mississippi River, were formed. With aid from public funding initiatives, the new museum broke ground on May 1, 1997, and opened on December 11, 1999. During the move, 1.75 million artifacts were transported.

In the early 2000s, the museum hosted several major exhibits that drew hundreds of thousands of visitors, including ''BODY WORLDS''; ''Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs;'' '' Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination;'' ''Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the'' Whydah ''from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship;'' ''The Science Behind Pixar'', and more. It also added several giant screen films to its production roster, including ''Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees''; ''Tornado Alley''; ''National Parks Adventure''; and ''Ancient Caves'', and it built its exhibit production portfolio with exhibits like ''Robots + Us''; ''A Day in Pompeii''; ''RACE: Are We So Different?''; ''Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed''; ''SPACE: An Out of Gravity Experience''; ''Sportsology'', and more. The Science Museum continues to provide exhibit development, design, and production services for museums around the world.

Resident exhibits

While offerings change frequently, there are several exhibits that are always in the museum, including:
*Dinosaurs & Fossils Gallery showcases several original and replicated dinosaur skeletons, as well as many complete and preserved animals. Some highlights from the Mesozoic include a ''Triceratops'', ''Diplodocus'', ''Allosaurus'', ''Stegosaurus'', and '' Camptosaurus'', while those from the Cenozoic include a giant terror bird, an armoured glyptodont, a giant seabird called ''Pelagornis sandersi'', a hyaenodont, and fossil crocodilians of the era, especially champsosaurs from the sixty-million-year-old Wannagan Creek site in North Dakota the museum works at. The gallery also features two sculpted, 17-foot-tall Quetzalcoatluses, giant flying reptiles from the late Cretaceous that were known for their long beaks and broad, bat-like wings.
*The Human Body Gallery shows visitors the various tissues, organs, and systems (such as blood or digestion) that make up the human body. There is a mummy on display here, as well as ''Weighing the Evidence'', an experience that helps visitors separate fact from fiction in healthcare decisions, featuring artifacts from the former Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. The museum acquired these pieces in 2002 when its original owner Bob McCoy, son of Wilson McCoy, retired and donated the collection.
*The Experiment Gallery allows visitors to explore concepts in physics, math, and physical and earth science with interactive displays.
*''Sportsology'', a study of the body in motion, gives visitors a better idea of what it takes to make a basket, swing a racket, or score a goal.
*''RACE: Are We So Different?'' is the first national exhibition to tell the stories of race from the biological, cultural, and historical points of view.
*''We Move & We Stay'' features artifacts and historical content about the Dakota and Ojibwe people.
*The Mississippi River Gallery takes advantage of the museum's proximity to the river and a National Park to educate visitors about its natural resources. Visitors can learn about the environment and animals of the river. It is also home to The Collectors' Corner. Traders (primarily children) bring in natural artifacts they have found to trade them for points or another artifact.

Facilities

Omnitheater

The Mississippi riverfront facility has a convertible dome IMAX theater. With both a wall screen for IMAX films and other flat-screen presentations and a rotating dome, for viewing IMAX dome presentations, it was the first convertible theater in the northern hemisphere. The counterweights for the system were so massive that they had to be put in place before the rest of the building. When it opened in 1999, the theater boasted "the largest permanently installed electronic cinema projector in the world", an advanced computer system to coordinate the theater's facilities, and a complex sound system to accommodate both viewing formats, according to th
website

In summer 2019, the Omnitheater closed briefly to conduct its conversion to digital laser technology. In October 2019, it reopened as the third digital laser IMAX dome theater in the world.

The museum is a leading producer of giant screen films, including:
*''Genesis'' (1978)
*''Living Planet'' (1979)
*''The Great Barrier Reef'' (1981)
*''Darwin on the Galapagos'' (1983)
*''Seasons'' (1987)
*''Ring of Fire'' (1991)
*''Tropical Rainforest'' (1992)
*''Search for the Great Sharks'' (1995)
*''The Greatest Places'' (1998)
*''Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees'' (2002)
*''Tornado Alley'' (2012)
*''National Parks Adventure'' (2016)
*''Ancient Caves'' (2019)

The theater was closed for a brief time in early 2014 to repair a leaky roof.

Mississippi River Visitor Center

Inside the lobby of the Science Museum is the National Park Service Visitor Center for the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, which is open free of charge. Mississippi River exhibits and National Park Rangers are available to help people learn about and experience the Mississippi River. The visitor center is also equipped with resources to help plan trips to any of the more than 390 national parks.

Center for Research and Collections

The staff in the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Center for Research and Collections care for a collection of over 1.7 million artifacts, objects, and specimens and conduct research in biology, palaeontology, anthropology, water quality, and climate change. In addition to their active research both in the lab and in the field, they conduct outreach with museum visitors, school groups, fellow researchers, and the general public. The museum’s collections are held in a storage vault. Items include dinosaurs and other fossils, preserved animals and plants, and cultural artifacts from extinct and extant civilizations. Researchers visit the vault to take advantage of the collection, but it is not open to regular museum visitors except during special events.

St. Croix Watershed Research Station

The St. Croix Watershed Research Station is part of the Science Museum’s Center for Research and Collections. It is located in Marine-on-St. Croix, Minnesota. It is the museum’s headquarters for a team of scientists who study water around the world.

Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center

The Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) is an informal learning environment for young people.

IDEAL Center

The museum is also home to the IDEAL (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Leadership) Center. What started as one of the leading professional development resources for teachers in the state has evolved into a center for leadership development training that serves school districts, universities, and informal education organizations around the country.

Special exhibitions

The museum hosts several special exhibitions a year, with past exhibitions having included:
*When Crocodiles Ruled (2000)
*Mysteries of Catalhoyuk (2001)
*Playing with Time (2002)
*Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (2002)
*Robots and Us (2004)
*Seasons of Life and Land (2004)
*Invention at Play (2005)
*Strange Matter (2006)
*Body Worlds (2006)
*Animal Grossology (2006)
*Race: Are We So Different? (2007)
*Wild Music (2007)
*A Day in Pompeii (2007)
*Deadly Medicine (2008)
*Animation (2008)
*Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination (2008)
*CSI: The Experience (2008)
*Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear (2009)
*Water (2009)
*Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition (2009)
*The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World (2010)
*Geometry Playground (2010)
*Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs (2011)
*Identity: An Exhibit of YOU (2011)
*Nature Unleashed (2011)
*Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship (2012)
*Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets Modern Science (2012)
*Body Worlds & The Cycle of Life (2013)
*Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed (2013)
*Ultimate Dinosaurs (2014)
*Design Zone (2014)
*Space: An Out-of-Gravity Experience (2015)
*Mummies: New Secrets from the Tombs (2016)
*Mindbender Mansion (2016)
*Mythic Creatures (2017)
*The Science Behind Pixar (2017)
*Mazes (2017)
*The Machine Inside: Biomechanics (2018)
*Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks (2018)
*Game Changers (2019)
*Inventing Genius (2019)
*Apollo: When We Went to the Moon (2020)
*Skin: Living Armor, Evolving Identity (2021)
*The Bias Inside Us (2021)

Memberships

The Science Museum of Minnesota is a member of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of Children’s Museums, and the Giant Screen Cinema Association. It is a founding member of NISE Net and participates in
NanoDays
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Education

The museum also has an extensive STEM learning division. In addition to its summer camp and field trip programs, museum educators are also hosted at various schools throughout the region. The museum has a consistent track record of serving students and teachers in all 87 Minnesota counties each year through field trips, classroom residencies, and large-group assemblies on topics that range from water to engineering. Summer camps serve hundreds of students each year, addressing science, technology, nature, and art themes.

In popular culture

* In 2017, the character Dustin appeared on the popular television show Stranger Things, set in the 1980s, wearing a brontosaurus hoodie sold by the museum in that era. The museum was quickly flooded with requests to purchase the garment, so they began manufacturing it again and took orders totaling $400,000 in a single day.

References

External links

The Science Museum of Minnesota's official website

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Education in Saint Paul, Minnesota
IMAX venues
Mississippi National River and Recreation Area
Museums in Saint Paul, Minnesota
Natural history museums in Minnesota
Natural history museums in the United States
Science museums in Minnesota
Dinosaur museums in the United States
Paleontology in Minnesota