Perot Museum of Nature and Science



The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is a natural history and science museum located in Dallas, Texas. It consists of two campuses: the primary campus located in Victory Park, and a secondary campus in Fair Park. The Victory Park campus museum was named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot. The current chief executive officer of the museum is Dr. Linda Abraham-Silver.

Background

History

In 2006, museum CEO Nicole Small oversaw the uniting of the Dallas Museum of Natural History and the Science Place and the Dallas Children's Museum at Fair Park. Following the merger, the museum was located in three buildings in Fair Park, featuring an IMAX-style theater, a fully functioning planetarium, an extensive exhibit hall, and its own on-site paleontology lab.
On June 1, 2014 the Perot Museum of Nature and Science welcomed a new CEO, Colleen Walker.
The museum relocated on December 1, 2012 to a new facility in Victory Park. The former Science Place Building and Planetarium were closed, with the building for the former Dallas Museum of Natural History converted into a second campus for the Perot Museum.

Donation and Endowment

The Victory Park campus museum was named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot as the result of a $50-million gift made by their adult children — Ross Perot, Jr.; Nancy Perot Mulford; Suzanne Perot McGee; Carolyn Perot Rathjen; and Katherine Perot Reeves. The $185-million fundraising goal – which provided for the site acquisition, exhibition planning and design, construction of the new building, education programs and an endowment was achieved by November 2011, more than a year before the museum's scheduled opening in December 2012. The donated funds enabled the museum to be built without incurring any debt or public funding.

Victory Park campus

The 180,000 square feet facility has 6 floors and stands about 14 stories high. It has five floors which are accessible to the public and houses 11 permanent exhibit halls as well as 6 learning labs. The top-most floor houses the museum's administration offices. The Victory Park campus opened its doors to the public on December 1, 2012. Approximately 6,000 visitors came to the museum on its first day of operation.

Building design

Designed by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis Architects, the building was conceived as a large cube floating over a landscaped plinth and is designed to inspire awareness of science through an immersive and interactive environment. It has a stone roof which features a landscape of drought-tolerant greenery inspired by Dallas surroundings. The building's design was conceived in collaboration with Dallas-based landscape architects, Talley Associates, the plinth is landscaped with a 1-acre rolling green roof consisting of rock and native drought-resistant grasses that reflects Texas' indigenous landscape and demonstrates a living system that will evolve naturally over time. By integrating architecture, nature and technology, the building's design demonstrates scientific principles and is used as a teaching tool that provides living examples of engineering, sustainability and technology at work. Building on the museum's commitment to resource conservation, the new building integrates a variety of sustainable strategies including a rainwater collection system that captures run-off water from the roof and parking lot, satisfying 74% of the museum's non-potable water needs and 100% of its irrigation needs.
The building features a continuous flow escalator housed within a glass casing that extends diagonally outside the building cube. To maximize sustainability, the building also features LED lighting, off-grid energy generation technology and solar-powered water heating. Skylights draw natural sunlight into the atrium and to the other spaces.
The building has secured from the Green Building Initiative the highest possible 4 Green Globes. It obtained a rating of an overall 85% on the Green Globes rating scale and 100% for its design and its sustainable performance measures. Green Globes is a nationally recognized green building guidance and assessment program in the United States. The Green Globes rigorous assessment is also the most closely aligned certification to United States federal building requirements. The Green Globes achievement is a rarity in United States building industry where only 12 out of 759 certified buildings have reached a four Globe certification. The Victory Park building was designed and built using green building practices so that it would serve as a model of sustainability.

Permanent exhibit halls

Exhibit hallLevelFeature Highlights
Moody Family Children's MuseumLower Level
SportsLower Level
  • Sports Run is a 55-foot interactive video exhibit where participants will be able to race Felix Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, Emily Richardson who is a WOGA Level 10 gymnast, a 3D life-size tyrannosaurus rex and a 3D life-size cheetah
  • View X-rays of sports injuries
  • Explore the human body's aerodynamics
    • Discovering Life2
  • Interactive dioramas of three Texas ecosystems
  • Experience the East Texas Piney Woods
  • Smell the beeswax of the Blackland Prairie
  • Hear the prairie dog's alarm call in the Chihuahuan Desert
    • Being Human2
  • Use motion capture to learn how the human body moves by mimicking instructors in hip-hop dance, basketball or tai chi as a visitor's body is projected next to theirs
  • View cross sections of real human bodies
  • Test out a prosthetic hand
  • Review human tissue samples
  • Record your own heartbeat
  • Toss a ping-pong ball with your mind
  • Get in the Bio Lab to extract DNA from wheat germ, examine your own cheek cells, dissect a fruit fly larva to see its giant chromosome or test antimicrobial agents
    • Texas Instruments Engineering and Innovation2
  • Create music in a sound studio
  • Build a robot to learn how machines follow programmed instructions
  • Create a model skyscraper that can withstand an earthquake
    • The Rees-Jones Foundation Dynamic Earth3
  • Simulated earthquake experience through the shake table simulator
  • Footage of real Texas tornadoes and hurricanes
  • The tornado simulator model
    • Lyda Hill Gems and Minerals3
  • World's third largest gold nugget known as the Ausrox Gold Nugget which was discovered by three prospectors with a hand-held metal detector on April 2010 in the Eastern Goldfields, Australia. The nugget is irregular shaped and has a surface that alternates between smooth, crystalline and square. The nugget has been on display at the Western Australia Museum at Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. After its Perot Museum stop, it will be exhibited in Munich, Germany as part of a world tour
  • 1.5 ton geode called the Grape Jelly geode
    • Tom Hunt Energy3
  • Virtually travel through 9,000 feet of gas well in the Shale Voyager motion-based theater to experience natural gas fracking. Visitors will experience being shrunk down to travel into a well shaft less than a foot wide in the Texas Barnett Shale
  • Learn the difference between onshore and offshore oil drilling
  • Learn about traditional and alternative fuels
  • Giant drill bit and gas turbine engine
    • T. Boone Pickens Life Then and Now4Follow the evolution of life on Earth over 4 billion years, the Beringia land bridge where people migrated from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge that spanned the current day Bering Strait and life in prehistoric Alaska. Soundscape for this exhibit was designed by students from the University of Texas at Dallas.
  • Cast of 85-foot alamosaurus and an actual alamosaurus skeleton
  • Cast of 35-foot malawisaurus
    • Expanding Universe4
  • Experience the Big Bang through the creation of Earth's solar system via high-definition screens
    • Rose Hall of Birds4 Mezzanine
  • Build your own bird by selecting wings, songs, diets, tails, feet and feathers to construct it and then put on 3D glasses and fly it

    • Temporary exhibit halls

    Exhibit hallLevelExhibit NameDateDescription
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelBuilding the BuildingDecember 1, 2012 – May 12, 2013Showcases the stories of the more than 2,500 people it took to create and design the Victory Park campus building and exhibits. Includes interviews with museum leaders, architect Thom Mayne, exhibit designers, landscape designer Coy Talley, Balfour Beatty construction team members, local educators from school districts and universities. Also includes the remnants of a Ford Model T discovered as the site was prepared for construction.
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelRecycle ReefJune 17, 2013 – August 25, 2013Visitors will participate in building the exhibit from the ground up by using recyclable materials to transform them into creative works of art. The exhibit will be dynamic and ever-changing as it develops with each newly contributed art work. The entire exhibit will be recycled after the exhibit closes.
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelAnimal Inside OutSeptember 22, 2013 – February 23, 2014
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelBuild It! GarageJune 21, 2014 – August 17, 2014
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelWorld's Largest DinosaurApril 6, 2014 – September 1, 2014
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower Level2theXtreme: MathAlive!September 27, 2014 – January 1, 2015
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelThe International Exhibition of Sherlock HolmesFebruary 14, 2015 – May 10, 2015
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelBuild It! NatureJune 19, 2015 – August 6, 2015
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelAmazing Animals: Built to SurviveJune 13, 2015 – September 7, 2015
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelCreatures of Light: Nature's BioluminescenceOctober 31, 2015 – February 21, 2016
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelEye of the CollectorApril 16, 2016 – September 5, 2016Nine exhibits displaying historical and fashionable objects of 10 people displaying their recollections of items they have gathered during their lives.
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelBirds of ParadiseOctober 8, 2016 – January 8, 2017Exhibits display video footage, photographs, artifacts, and interactive experiences to create a science exhibition, art show, and natural history display from a comprehensive study of all 39 known species of birds-of-paradise.
    Lyda Hill Gems and Minerals3rd FloorGiant Gems of the SmithsonianSeptember 9, 2016 – January 17, 2017Exhibit displays a close up view of the National Museum of Natural History's National Gem Collection.
    Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones Exhibition HallLower LevelMaya: Hidden Worlds RevealedFebruary 11, 2017 – September 4, 2017Exhibit allowing guests to explore an underworld cave, excavate an ancient burial site, and encounter the richness of Maya culture through hands-on explorations such as building arches, deciphering hieroglyphs and translating the Maya calendar.

    The Hoglund Foundation Theater A National Geographic Experience

    The 297-seat Americans with Disabilities Act compliant theater has a 2D, 3D 4K digital projection and sound system. The theater features a variety of films from educational features and documentaries to experimental independent films.

    Fair Park campus

    The museum at Fair Park is located in the Museum of Natural History building constructed, along with much of Fair Park, for the 1936-1937 Texas Centennial Exposition whose facilities form a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. The campus features exhibits such as Mineral Majesty, Light Play and historical dioramas. Admission to the former Dallas Museum of Natural History is $1 for non-members and free for members. A ticket to the Perot Museum in Victory Park provides free access to the Fair Park campus.

    Educational outreach

    The museum creates a Teacher's Guide, which is a booklet and online publication that is distributed to North Texas educators. The guide outlines programming designed for children pre-K to 12th grade in earth and space sciences, life and natural sciences, chemistry, physical sciences and engineering. Programming is designed to reinforce Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills objectives.
    There are three educational outreach opportunities: field trips to the museum, onsite programming at schools, and ScienceCast distance-learning programs through videoconferencing.

    Field trips

    Students can explore 11 permanent exhibit halls, experience educational films in their theater, and take advantage of TEKS-aligned onsite classroom or auditorium programming. Further learning, available through program extensions, is held in the learning labs and auditorium of the museum's Lower Level. The museum also features educational films, offered in partnership with National Geographic.

    Onsite programming at schools

    Museum educators offer 26 programs that can be taught in schools’ classrooms, presented to large groups in auditoriums, or showcased as part of after-school programming.

    Distance-learning video conferencing

    ScienceCast distance-learning programs, which the museum created and introduced in 2012 to widespread acclaim, use computer technology to stream live instruction directly to the classroom, allowing students to interact with educators in real time.