Science Museums in New Mexico

Science Museums in New Mexico

National Science Museum and Science Education Meetings held in NM

  • A new initiative for STEM outreach linking science museums has begun, organized by the NM Museum of Natural History & Science and funded by EPSCoR
  • In November, Soar to Greater Heights STEM Conference, a joint meeting of the NM Science Teachers Assoc, NM Math Teachers Assoc, and Environmental Educators of NM will be held in Albuquerque. The NM Museum of Natural History & Science, Explora, and National Museum of Nuclear Science & History are co-sponsors and co-organizers for sessions and workshops.
  • The Wilderness Conference (celebrating 50 years of the Wilderness Act) will be held in Albuquerque Oct 15-19.

Partnerships for Teacher Professional Development Institutes

  • In September and October, professional development workshops for early childhood educators will be held at the New mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in conjunction with the “Wonder of Learning” exhibit currently on display at the Museum.

Summer and Fall Science Exhibits and Events by Museum

New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science – ABQ
New Exhibits:

  • Nature’s Blueprints: Cyanotypes from the Bioscience Collections
  • Earth from Space
  • Wonder of Learning
  • All That Glitters
  • NatureScapes Photo Salon (Theme is Wilderness)

New Programs:

  • Adult field trips, classes, evening lectures.
  • Science and Art Tea “A Journey to Wilderness”….Oct 14 from 3-5pm

Space Science Events:

  • International Observe the Moon Night …Sept 6
  • Partial Solar Eclipse…Oct 23
  • Total Lunar Eclipse…Oct 8

Teacher Workshops:

  • Bosque Education Guide one-day workshop for K-12 teachers

Special Teacher Event:

  • Teacher Open House…FREE for all teachers Sept 17, 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm.

Children’s classes:

  • Prehistoric Preschool … Fall Session 1: Family Nature Mapping; Fall Session 2: Movin’ in Prehistoric Time
  • Winter Holiday Camp … see www.NMnaturalhistory.org for details

Explora – ABQ
Exhibits:

  • Luz, Sombra, Color/Light, Shadow, Color
  • Math Moves/Movidas Matematicas

New Program:

  • Growing a Scientist 9:30am everyday
  • Experiment Bar 10am everyday
  • After School Club

Special Event:

  • Audition for Explora’s Theater Fall Performance

Note: Closed for annual maintenance Sept 2-8

National Museum of Nuclear Science and History – ABQ
New Exhibits:

  • Dr. Saul Hertz and the Origin of Nuclear Medicine
  • The Atomic STEaM Photography Show (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math)

Special Event:  Oct 20-24 is Nuclear Science Week

Indian Pueblo Cultural Center  – ABQ
New Exhibits:

  • Generations of Prayer, Song and Dance
  • Albuquerque Indian School Retrospective
  • Saints of the Pueblos

Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at UNM – ABQ
New Exhibits:

  • El Agua es Vida: Acequias in Northern New Mexico
  • Clay: Fire and Containment
  • An Experiment in Viewing (touch table)
  • Contemporary Navajo Photographers

Education: Eleven different programs offered
For Teachers:  Museum guided tours, Traveling Trunks, Check out kits

Meteorite Museum, Institute of Meteoritics, UNM – ABQ
Closed currently for upgrades and remodeling
Programs:

  • Outreach visits with meteorites and meteorwrongs!

Geology Museum, Dept of Earth and Planetary Science, UNM – ABQ

  • Open 8:30 am to 4:30 pm M-F (closed for lunch)
  • Exhibits: General NM geology, rocks and minerals, fossils
  • Programs: worksheets and scavenger hunts.

Bradbury Museum – Los Alamos
New Exhibit:

  • Explosives
  • Algae to Biofuels
  • Nanotechnology

New Programs:

  • Cell phone audio tour
  • High Tech Halloween – Oct 25 4pm to 6:30pm
  • Lecture Series

Special Event:

  • Los Alamos ScienceFest Week in September

Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/ Laboratory of Anthropology – Santa Fe
New Exhibit:

  • Turquoise, Water, Sky: The Stone and its Meaning
  • Heartbeat: Music of the Native Southwest

New Programs:

  • Native American Film Series
  • Breakfast with the Artist
  • Sunday Lecture Series

Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology – Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center, Abiquiu
Exhibit: Coelophysis, NM’s State Fossil
Program: Paleontology of Ghost Ranch Tour

Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology – Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center, Abiquiu
Exhibit: Paleo Indian Culture
Program: Anthropology of Ghost Ranch Tour

Famington Museum – Farmington
New Exhibits:

  • Knocking it out of the Park: Celebrating 50 years of Connie Mack
  • Lost Egypt

New Programs:

  • Music by the river

Special Event: Totah Festival

Grants Mining Museum – Grants
Exhibits: The only Uranium Mining Museum in the World

  • Recreated replica underground mine
  • Mining tools, techniques and equipment, miners’ audio histories
  • Uranium ore minerals

Mineralogical Museum – New Mexico Institute of Technology, Socorro
Exhibits:

  • Over 2000 mineral specimens from New Mexico organized by mining district or locality
  • Large reference collection for research use

Programs:

  • Educators can arrange for class tours/demos
  • 35th Annual New Mexico Mineral Symposium … Nov 8-9

Las Cruces Museum of Nature and Science – Las Cruces
Permanent Exhibits:

  • Desert Life
  • Permian Trackways
  • Light and Space

Programs:

  • Animal Encounters, Behind the Scenes Tours, Family Science Saturday, Desert Trek Workshops
  • Scout Merit Badge Program, Southwest Reading Connections Bookclub.
  • Science Café (in partnership with Sigma Xi NMSU)

NM Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum – Las Cruces
New Exhibits:

  • Bonnie Mandoe: NM Land and Landscapes
  • The Color of Pie Town
  • The Cowboy Way
  • Cowboys: the Real Deal

New Programs:

  • Culture Lecture Series
  • Ghosts of the Past
  • Homegrown: A New Mexico food show

New Mexico Museum of Space History – Alamogordo
New Exhibits:

  • 25 Years of Space Photography
  • GPS exhibit and Inertial Navigation Exhibit

New Programs:

  • New Outreach activities including Alien Autopsy (astrobiology), Flying Teakettles (rockets)
  • Curation papers published of eminent space pioneers oral histories

Lea County Western Heritage Museum – Hobbs
New Exhibits:

  • Arte en la Charreria
  • Bugs: Outside the Box
  • Wicked Plants

New Programs:

  • Fall Classic Film Series
  • Staked Plains Roundup
  • Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame Banquet
  • Christmas Traditions from Around the World

ENMU Museum – Portales
(Includes Blackwater Draw Museum, Clovis Site, Miles Mineral Museum, and Roosevelt County Museum)
Exhibits:

  • Diversity of Life
  • Pecos Valley Diamonds (Quartz Crystals)

WNMU Museum – Silver City
Exhibits:

  • Mogollon and Mimbres Cultures

New Exhibits:

  • The NAN Ranch Collection
  • Silver City Clay Festival Exhibition

New Programs:

  • Lectures Series on the Prehistoric Southwest

Deming Luna Mimbres Museum – Deming
Exhibits:

  • Mimbres Pottery
  • Geode and Gem and Mineral Collections
  • Historical Archives