A visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science includes the Wortham IMAX Theatre, Burke Baker Planetarium, Cockrell Butterfly Center, permanent exhibit halls and featured traveling exhibitions. The most popular student activities are:
Cockrell Butterfly Center
The Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science is a stunning, living exhibit that showcases hundreds of live butterflies in a naturalistic rainforest setting.
Hall of Palentology
The Museum's Hall of Paleontology contains more than 450 fossils and fossil replicas, providing a vivid glimpse into the incredible 3.5-billion-year story of life on Earth.
Cullen Hall of Gems and Minerals
The spectacular Cullen Hall houses the world’s finest display-quality collection of gems and minerals. See more than 750 beautifully crystallized mineral specimens, including some of the world’s rarest and most beautiful examples.
Challenger Learning Center Missions
The Challenger Center is a unique experience using space exploration to fuel the imagination and get participants excited about science in the classroom.
A Full Mission consists of both a Moon and Mars landing with mission controllers and astronauts. Along the way astronauts must complete experiments and make sure the ship is functioning properly, while mission controllers track information, do research and ensure the safety of the crew.
Burke Planetarium
The Burke Baker Planetarium allows visitors to experience the wonders of space by giving visitors the feeling that they are traveling in space.
Wortham IMAX
IMAX® is the finest motion picture system in the world. Images are projected from the IMAX film frame-10 times bigger than a conventional 35mm frame-onto a giant screen measuring 80 feet in width and six stories in height