After 121 years, the
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh moved into
a new building four times the size of the previous Museum. The new museum
is the Southeast's largest natural history museum, filled with four floors
of new exhibits, live animals, and exciting hands-on activities and programs.
In this impressive seven-story structure:
- Special events and lectures featuring scientists from around the world take place in a 250-seat auditorium. The auditorium also houses a 22-foot HDTV screen, the largest in the Southeast.
- In the Windows on the World Demonstration Theater, a link to the N.C. Information Highway takes educational programs across the state.
- Visitors enjoy meals in the Acro cafe, and the Museum hosts evening events in the fifth-floor boardroom overlooking the city.
- The Museum's already extensive programs for school groups have more than tripled.
- Two floors below ground level provide vastly expanded research and collection rooms and labs for museum scientists.
First Floor | Second Floor | Third Floor | Fourth Floor
Already the most popular attraction in the capital, the Museum's attendance was projected to increase to 500,000 annually in the new facility. Nearly one million people visited the new Museum in its first year. More than one million natural science specimens, one of the most significant research collections in the southeastern United States, are housed in this state-of-the-art structure and nearby research lab. With a local impact of $10 million dollars, the Museum will boost North Carolina's burgeoning ecotourism industry.
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