Permanent Exhibitions

Located on Second Floor

The "Discovery Zone" is bursting with activities that help build a strong foundation of science skills in young children as they look, ask, discover, make and share. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Keep all food outside the gallery.
• Make sure your drink has a lid.
• Leave your shoes on.
• We recommend bringing a change of clothes for young children because they will likely get wet on Water Way.
• Children are expected to enter with and stay close to our grown-ups. Adults and children are expected to stay together and encouraged to play together.

School Groups & Field Trips

• The "Discovery Zone" is designed for families and school groups in 2nd grade and younger.
• Older school groups, please check out other hands-on experiences in "Space Odyssey" and "Expedition Health" ®.

How Can We Have Fun?

• Free hugs every day from our Parasaurolophus
• Wet clothes as you splash in the Colorado-themed Water Way
• Giggles and joy when you act and play among the clouds in Up, Up and Away
• Brain-stretches with each thing you build and engineer in the Construction Corner
• A hideaway for our youngest scientists to explore in the Big Backyard
• Tasty moments with every experiment you sample from the menu in the Science Kitchen

Cleaning Schedule

The "Discovery Zone" will close at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesdays for cleaning and maintenance on the Water Way.

The "Discovery Zone" is closed for 20-minute cleanings at the following times each day:

• 10:40 - 11:00 a.m.
• 12:40 - 1:00 p.m.
• 2:40 - 3:00 p.m.

More Activities for Your Young Scientist

Our youngest guests also enjoy these areas of the Museum:

• Tykes Peak, "Expedition Health" ®, Level 2: Get moving and play on a climbing log and slide.
• Wildlife Halls, Levels 2 & 3: Count baby animals, hunt for colors, and get up close to kid-sized statues of black bear cubs and a fur seal pup in Bears and Sea Mammals Hall.
• "Space Odyssey", Level 1: Budding space enthusiasts will love exploring our interactive Astro Tots section of "Space Odyssey"! 
• Scavenger Hunt, search for elves, animals, and more throughout the Museum!

Located on Third Floor

A team of Egyptologists and other specialists from around the country collaborated with Michele Koons, curator of archaeology, to find out how today’s leading technologies could shed more light on the lives and deaths of two female mummies on display in the Egyptian Mummies gallery.

The results are in! Findings from CT scans, radiocarbon dating, isotope analysis, and other tests show that the mummies’ distinctions are less likely based on their economic status, as previously thought, and more on when they lived during the history of Egyptian mummification. 

Exhibits reveal new storylines for the two ancient women, highlighted by an interactive touch table that digitally unwraps the mummies and allows you to focus on key features. You will also see an exhibit about animal mummies, including a baby crocodile mummy once presumed to be empty.

Tomb artifacts, a model of an Egyptian temple, and a facial reconstruction of one of the women’s skulls round out the exhibition.

These mummies began their journey to Colorado in 1905 when entrepreneur Andrew McClelland visited Egypt as a tourist. It was fashionable at the time for wealthy tourists to purchase mummies to bring home, for “unwrapping parties” and to display in local museums. The mummies ended up in the Rosemount Museum in Pueblo and are now on permanent loan to our Museum.

Located on Second Floor

Expedition Health ® is about YOUR human body and how it is constantly changing and adapting in ways you can see, measure, and optimize through the choices you make.

In the exhibition gallery, you will experience highly personalized activities, become immersed in a theater experience that engages all of your senses, look at microscopic cells from your own body in a laboratory, participate in live demonstrations and programs, and meet "buddies" who will help you learn about your health.

Located on First Floor

Grab your hard hat! In Coors Gems and Minerals Hall, follow the mine shaft into a Mexican silver mine, where a cavern glistens with milky white gypsum crystals and stalactites. Then enter Colorado's own Sweet Home Mine to discover a six-foot wall of beautiful red rhodochrosite crystals.

Colorado was founded on mining, so you'll see more local finds, like Tom's Baby, an eight-pound nugget of crystallized gold unearthed in Breckenridge in 1887.

You'll also be dazzled by the largest known pocket of aquamarine ever discovered, from Colorado's own Mount Antero, and a giant Brazilian topaz once owned by artist Salvador Dali. The hall is packed with hundreds of specimens from around the world. Hands-on activities and videos help young explorers learn about mineral characteristics and how minerals form.

Located on Third Floor

See the only collection of the remarkable Vasily Konovalenko gem sculptures on public display outside of Moscow.

Vasily Konovalenko (koh-noh-vuh-len-koh) was born in 1929 in Petrivka, Ukraine (just north of the Black Sea). After earning a degree in art and architecture, he became a stage designer for the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre. He worked on productions of Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, and other classic operas and ballets.  In 1957, while working at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Konovalenko produced sets for the ballet Stone Flower, in which the protagonist is a stonecutter. Konovalenko's gem carvings for the ballet earned rave reviews, and he became smitten with the art form.

Konovalenko continued to make gem sculptures throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Around 1974, American businessman Armand Hammer saw the sculptures on display and offered Konovalenko a house in the United States, machinery, and minerals with which to work. In pursuit of freedom, Konovalenko and his family quickly emigrated. In the early 1980s, Museum trustee Alvin Cohen purchased 20 of the Konovalenko sculptures and made them available to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where they have been on display ever since. It is the only collection of the remarkable Konovalenko sculptures on public display outside of Moscow.

Located on Third Floor

A journey through the eons allows you to trace the evolution of life on Earth, from single-celled organisms to lumbering dinosaurs to the inhabitants of today's world.

Travel through time-starting 3.5 billion years ago. Your journey begins beneath ancient seas. Life diversifies as you move through the millennia, surrounded by fearsome fish and waving sea lilies. Soon you're out of the water and the air is filled with huge dragonflies. Foot-long centipedes crawl around you. Then the dinosaurs appear!

In this Exhibition Hall

• Watch Allosaurus and Stegosaurus do battle with an 80-foot-long Diplodocus towering overhead
• Wander prehistoric habitats and examine ancient plants
• Experience the warming and cooling of Earth's climate
• Witness the rise of mammals and the dawn of the human family
• Pick up fossils from Museum Touch Carts and examine them
• Observe scientists as they study and prepare fossils using modern technology to decipher the past

Earth Sciences Lab

Situated at the end of the award-winning Prehistoric Journey exhibition, the Schlessman Family Laboratory of Earth Sciences opened in April 1990.

About 75 percent of the fossils that have been on display, or are currently on display at the Museum, have come through the lab. This volume of fossil preparation is high for a museum and is possible only through the dedication of our volunteers. More than 125 men and women work in the lab, donating their time and passion 364 days out of the year.

Located on First Floor

"Space Odyssey" is all about answering the how, catapulting you into a place where you can touch, see, hear, and, yes, even smell what it’s like to be “out there.” You determine how to engage with the world beyond us, in a wildly creative environment that encourages free-range space science and no-boundaries adventure.

Inside “Space Odyssey,” guests can explore many ways of answering the question, “How do we know that about space?”

• Traverse the Sensory Spacewalk in the new Fantasy Spaceship with over 11,000 “stars” that use 43 miles of optical fiber to help you feel like you’re in space.
• Feel the rumble of rockets and speed through the atmosphere in the launch simulator.
• Hear traditional and living indigenous knowledge of the night sky and Earth's origins.
• Have your own body warp spacetime.
• Make your own gorgeous “Hubble” images of nebulae and galaxies.
• Drive a rover on the surface of Mars.
• Crash a projectile into a planetary surface to see how your crater measures up.
• Find the hidden disco ball. (Hint: it really spins.)

Space Odyssey was made possible with support from many donors, including The Anschutz Foundation, Mark & Martha Freeman, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Lockheed Martin, Blair & Kristin Richardson, and M. Patrick & Jo Ann Swingle.

Located on Second and Third Floors

Animals big and small come to life in exquisitely detailed dioramas that transport you around the world. 

From Alaska to Argentina, Africa to Australia, more than 90 wildlife and habitat scenes illustrate our planet's amazing diversity. Like three-dimensional "postcards" from places near and far, they capture moments in time, showcasing the world's wondrous animals and the delicate ecosystems in which they live.