What’s the Rochester Museum & Science Center?

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The Rochester Museum and Science Center in New York offers interactive exhibits on natural sciences, technology, regional heritage, and a planetarium. It also oversees a nature preserve with hiking trails and seasonal activities. The museum contains over one million objects and documents on local history and industry.

The Rochester Museum and Science Center combines a museum with a science learning center in Rochester, New York. The center’s interactive exhibits focus on the world of natural sciences, science and technology, and regional heritage. The three-story museum is housed on 13 acres (0.05 square kilometers) and contains more than one million objects. The Rochester Museum and Science Center contains the Strasenburgh Planetarium and also oversees a 900-acre (3.64 square kilometer) nature preserve, the Cumming Nature Center, in Naples, New York.

School-age children and their families will find plenty to do at the Rochester Museum and Science Center with hands-on activities that prompt visitors to focus on explorations that encourage the use of all the senses. Interactive exhibits include a dinosaur bone pit where kids can dig for discoveries. Other interactive exhibits include one that explains what energy is, the sources of energy and how people use it, as well as one that helps kids learn about the earth and the forces that shaped it, like earthquakes and volcanoes.

Older children can learn about four centuries of Iroquois and Seneca history as it relates to the European settlement of New York and the history of the underground railroad in the region. Kids can see the recreated settings where escaped slaves hid during their journey north. Another hands-on installation teaches visitors how machines work and includes information about magnetism, electricity and sound. An exhibit called the Adventure Zone offers visitors a chance to learn how a canal lock works, as well as providing a simulated ride along Lake Ontario. Visitors can also learn about the weather.

The Cumming Nature Center offers seasonal activities, six miles (9.65 km) of hiking trails and 15 miles (24.14 km) of trails for cross country skiers. The center is a site of natural beauty with forests, wetlands and ponds. Visitors can see a sugar house, a log cabin, and learn more about the area at the interpretive center.

The Rochester Museum and Science Center was founded in 1912, when it was the city’s municipal museum. The planetarium was opened in 1968. Today, the museum contains 40,000 items in photographs and related materials, as well as thousands of documents relating to local history and industry, including documents on the Civil War, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony. The Rochester Museum and Science Center supports a library of more than 20,000 books, with a focus on volumes relating to museum properties, early technology, African American heritage, the Iroquois, and local history. More than 1,400 publications cover anthropology, archaeology, history and geology, including numerous historical publications.




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