History Meets State-of-the-Art Technology at New Museum

By Emily Clingman
The Fort Collins Museum of Discovery will open its doors on Saturday, November 10th to unveil 47,000 square feet of engaging and interactive exhibits, including Music & Sound, Wildlands & Wildlife, People on the Move, First Peoples, Food, Forage & Farm, and the hands-on Science Discovery Zone – a unique merge of science, history and culture presented with unbelievable state-of-the-art of technology.
One highlight not to be missed is the Digital Dome Theater – kind of like a planetarium on steroids (14.9 million pixels!). The 360 degree immersive, large format theater will feature interactive educational and cultural films, access to NASA’s database, allowing viewers to travel anywhere in the galaxy; and interaction with other Domes around the world.
If history is your thing, you’ll want to check out the 42-foot long plesiosaur skeleton, which was recovered near Horsetooth Reservoir. Countless other historical artifacts will be display, many of them local, to “tell the global story through a local lens,” according to co-director, Cheryl Donaldson.
The rooftop observation deck is free to the public and sports panoramic views of the city, and all the way to Wyoming. Also free to the public is the Local History Archive, where you can find more than 200,000 photographs, documents and memorabilia of Fort Collins form the 1860’s to the present.
The Museum is also LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified, one of just a few museums in the country. Also exclusive to Museum will be two Black-footed ferrets who will live in the prairie diorama in the Natural Areas zone – the only museum in the world to have an exhibit like this!
The Museum of Discovery is located jut north of Old Town at 408 Mason Ct. For more information, visit: www.fcmdsc.org.