World of Discovery series returns

The World of Discovery series is back at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science.

Join us for the World of Discovery lecture series at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science. This fall, we welcome scientists from the University of Delaware College of Earth, Ocean and Environment to present an in-depth look at the pioneering research impacting the future of Earth’s ecosystems.

Wednesdays, October 11 and November 8, 2023

Exploring the hidden lives of sharks

Wednesday, October 11 | 7 p.m.

Sharks capture the public’s attention like no other species, as demonstrated by the popularity of Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” and the frequency with which stories of sharks “lurking” in local waters grab headlines. However, despite the great public interest in sharks and the important role they play in marine ecosystems, these animals remain misunderstood and challenging to study. Learn how new research is shedding light on the biology and ecology of sharks and how scientists are using cutting-edge technologies to view the hidden lives of sharks and aid in the conservation and management of these iconic predators.

Aaron Carlisle is an Assistant Professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy at the University of Delaware. He has studied the biology and ecology of fishes for the last 20 years, largely focusing on elasmobranch (sharks, skates, and rays) and pelagic fishes (tunas, billfishes).

Pre-registration requested; program is free to all participants!


Mindbender Mansion

Our next special exhibit opens Saturday, September 30

Enter the wonderfully puzzling world of Mindbender Mansion, an eclectic place full of brainteasers and interactive challenges guaranteed to test the brain power and problem-solving skills of even the most experienced puzzlers.

Guests to this fun and quirky mansion are invited to join the Mindbender Society by gathering hidden clues and secret passwords scattered throughout the various thematic rooms of the house. The clues and passwords are revealed by solving select brainteasers and group challenges.

Visitors are encouraged to think outside the box and collaborate with their fellow mansion guests to meet individual and group challenges, which include manipulating a tilt table, keeping up with T.V. trays on a conveyer belt, and disco hopscotch spelling.

Mindbender Mansion is incredibly engaging for all ages and generations as grandparents, parents, and children learn from each other to solve the 40 brainteasers and five group activities.

Mindbender Mansion is on exhibit September 30, 2023 to May 12, 2024

Mindbender Mansion was produced and is toured by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Portland, Oregon, and is sponsored locally by Bank of America.

Dude the Museum Cat

In February, The Dodo, an online publisher of positive animal-related videos, shared social media videos they created in partnership with our team about Dude the cat ahead of his 15th birthday and 14th anniversary at the museum. Since then, the videos have been seen by millions, with thousands of reshares. Other media covered the story, resulting in more interest in Dude. In the process, Dude has made many new friends, with visitors coming from the region as well as Connecticut, Texas, Florida and more.

Rescue Cat Goes To Work At A Museum With His Dad Every Day (The Dodo)

Rescue Cat Goes to Work At A Museum With His Dad Every Day (The Dodo on Facebook)

This cat runs a museum (The Dodo on TikTok)

‘Dude the Cat’ has earned many titles at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science (6ABC)

Cat Goes to Work Daily With His Human at a Museum (Laughing Squid)

Delaware Museum resident Dude, the rescue cat, goes viral on YouTube (Delawareonline)

Hear about Dude the museum rescue cat from his cat dad Chris Hayden (Delawareonline)

The Dodo fell in love with ‘Dude,’ a famous museum cat in Delaware (Delawareonline, subscribers only)

These cute animal ambassadors will make you smile (10 Best)

Want to meet Dude? He’s only at the museum on weekdays – and often has left the building by 1 p.m. It’s always a good idea to call first.

Follow Dude on social media

Dude is on Facebook and Instagram, as well as making some appearances on the museum’s social media.

Be the Astronaut closing soon!

Prepare for lift off and discover what space travel is all about with Be the Astronaut on exhibit through Monday, September 11

The museum is closed to the public September 5-8. Beginning September 9, our hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Experience the wonders of space and plan a space mission, learn about the technology and math skills required to be an astronaut, and fly spaceships, pilot landers and drive rovers in this exciting exhibit. The exhibit includes interactive stations that encourage guests to learn basic concepts about our solar system, space travel, gravity and more.

Be the Astronaut puts guests in the pilot’s seat of a spaceship while providing a birds-eye view of real astronaut pretraining with the use of touch screen stations, artifacts and interactive simulator pods built to look like space capsules.

The exhibit includes:

Navigation Interactive Stations, where visitors can engage in mission planning as well as learn about orbits and Newton’s laws, gravity, etc.
Science Interactive Stations, where visitors can explore the equipment and technology needed to accomplish space travel missions and learn about rockets, space suits and space craft.
Flying Capsules, a dramatic big screen experience with pilot and co-pilot adjustable seating and controls. Visitors can launch rockets and land rovers depending on their given mission requirements.

Produced by Eureka Exhibits and designed by NASA engineers, Be the Astronaut is on exhibit from June 24-September 11. Entry into the exhibit is included with museum membership or general admission.

Digital Membership Cards

Help us further our mission by reducing paper waste and going digital!

The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is transitioning to digital membership cards to be more in line with our mission to create a society that respects and values our planet. Going digital is convenient, while also supporting the museum and our environmentally friendly initiatives.

Your membership cards can be downloaded using the free eMembership app or into your digital wallet on your smartphone. Downloading the app gives you access to your benefits as a member, a floor plan of the museum, a list of reciprocal institutions, and frequently asked questions (FAQs).

Once downloaded, all you need to do is select Show Membership Card and we can scan the barcode at the front desk!

To download your membership cards with the eMembership App:

Step 1

Download eMembership App from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store

Step 2

Search and select Delaware Museum of Nature and Science, then select Find My Membership Cards

Step 3

Enter:

a) Your membership number and your last name

or

b) Your phone number and last name

Step 4

Select Download my cards.

To ensure the information you are receiving is correct, please make sure you have downloaded the most recent update for the eMembership app.

How to download membership cards to your digital wallet on your smartphone

If you do not want to download the app, you can download your membership cards right into your smartphone wallet.

Enter:

a) Your membership number and your last name

or

b) Your phone number and last name

If you have an iPhone, select “Add to Apple Wallet”

If you have an Android, select “Add to Google Wallet”

Soundscapes

Sound is a distinct part of an ecosystem. The soundscapes in the galleries are designed to add another level to the immersive experience – they aren’t just background noise! Many of the species that can be viewed in the exhibits have a corresponding sound in the gallery’s soundscape.

In an ecosystem, sounds are part of an animal’s habitat, offering clues about the surrounding environment as well as being a tool to communicate with others. For example, when a hawk flies by and screams, mice and other rodents nearby will scurry away.

Some of the sounds used in the soundscapes came from the Macaulay Library at Cornell University, which features the largest archive of animal sounds in the world, with new material constantly uploaded. For example, the Pileated Woodpecker sound, heard as part of the Regional Journey’s Temperate Forest soundscape, was initially recorded locally and uploaded to the Macaulay Library by Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Assistant Curator of Birds. These resources help power Cornell’s Merlin app, which can be used by bird watchers in the field to identify birds by photo and sound.

Listen to Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Assistant Curator of Birds, talk about the soundscapes in the Regional Journey Gallery and what we can learn from the sounds we hear.

Transcript: Regional Journey Soundscapes

Hi. Welcome to the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science Regional Journey Gallery. My name is Matthew Halley, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the soundscapes that we hear today in our gallery.

We’ve got multiple habitats that are found in the mid-Atlantic region, a deciduous forest, temperate forest habitat. We have the Delaware Bay and salt marshes and the cypress swamp, and each of these habitats has a different soundscape.

We hear different animals and different crashing waves or the rustling of the leaves. There’s all sorts of sounds that are happening in nature.

When we go into these habitats and the animals are calling out for different reasons that scientists like to argue about, about whether they’re saying, here I am, here I am, or they’re staking a claim to a certain area and resources, or maybe they’re trying to attract a mate or attract some companions.

But regardless of the reason, these animals have to live in a in a soundscape and they listen to all these different sounds and they react to the sounds in their life, which helps them to survive. And when the hawk flies over and gives its scream, you can be sure that the mice that are under the hawk are scurrying into a safe corner.

So, birds make different kinds of sounds and scientists call them calls or songs. But we don’t have any clear-cut definitions for those words. Some sounds are shorter and less complex, such as when a Blue Jay goes “jay…jay.”
Other songs are a lot more complicated. When the robin is singing, it’s warbling song going on and on. It seems like it doesn’t repeat itself very often.

And then we have the mockingbird, which, you know, can go on for an hour, and we don’t hear anything from the same. You know, it’s constantly coming up with new syllables in its song so that we might think of that as kind of a gradient of complexity in bird vocalizations. And one of the things that some that scientists have figured out is that some vocalizations are learned and other vocalizations seem not to be learned.

So, the Phoebe that makes it’s Phoebe, Phoebe call that will develop normally in a baby Phoebe, without hearing an adult. If it grows up in an acoustic isolation chamber, that little Phoebe is still going to say “Phoebe, Phoebe.”

And it’s going to be indistinguishable from a baby Phoebe that grew up in a forest full of Phoebes.
But some other songs: here we’ve got the wood thrush singing in the soundscape, the wood thrush, that flute section in the middle of its song. When you raise a wood thrush in isolation that’s middle, part of the song gets kind of flat and unmusical. And so, it seems that the wood thrush needs to grow up around other wood thrushes to have a tutor to learn how to sing its song correctly.

And when I say correctly, I mean just to sing to produce a normal song that will achieve the functions of the song, whatever they may be, whether it’s territorial defense or attracting a mate. The more your song deviates from the normal, that might have an effect on whether you’re successful surviving or reproducing.

Regional Journey

Four rotating soundscapes in the Regional Journey feature many of the birds seen in the exhibits. Listen closely: there’s also a frog, squirrel, and a fishing reel!

Global Journey

In the Alison K. Bradford Global Journey Gallery, soundscapes including a variety of birds, mammals, and insects rotating through the land-based ecosystems.

New discount programs for guests using EBT cards

We’ve joined Museums for All, a signature access program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), administered by the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM), to encourage people of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly and build lifelong museum-going habits. The program supports those receiving food assistance (SNAP) benefits visiting the museum for a minimal fee of $2 per person, up to four people, with the presentation of a SNAP Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. Similar free and reduced admission is available to eligible members of the public at more than 850 museums across the country.

Museums for All helps expand access to museums and also raise public awareness about how museums in the U.S. are reaching their entire communities. More than 850 institutions participate in the initiative, including art museums, children’s museums, science centers, botanical gardens, zoos, history museums, and more. Participating museums are located nationwide, representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

We’re also a member of Art Reach’s ACCESS Delaware. The programs are similar, but with some geographic differences: ACCESS is primarily for residents of Delaware and Pennsylvania, while Museums for All is for residents of all 50 states. Additionally, ACCESS offers the Art-Reach ACCESS Card. Individuals with disabilities can purchase an ACCESS Card directly from Art-Reach that allows them to receive $2 admission to over 70 museums, gardens, theaters and cultural sites throughout Greater Philadelphia.

To use Museums for All

Upon the display of an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, the individual and up to three additional people will get a discounted admission rate of $2 per person. The person whose name appears on the EBT card must be present to obtain the discount.

To use ACCESS

Bring a valid Art-Reach ACCESS Card, Pennsylvania ACCESS Card or Delaware EBT Card with a photo ID to the front desk. One (1) EBT or ACCESS Card admits the cardholder and up to three additional people at a rate of $2 per person. The person whose name appears on the EBT or ACCESS Card must be present to obtain the discount.

MOTUS detects Lesser Yellowlegs

A bird species that migrates through our area — a Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) — was detected by the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (MOTUS) tower on the museum’s roof, installed by University of Delaware scientists in early 2021 to track movement of Purple Martins (Progne subis).

Lesser Yellowlegs © U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region

MOTUS is an international collaborative research network dedicated to tracking the migration of small birds, made possible by radio telemetry towers, which read the transmitter tags carried by birds that fly within about 15 km of the tower. Since our tower was installed, it has logged more than 3,200 readings.

The MOTUS tower was installed in early 2021.

The vast majority of detections are of banded Purple Martins, with some individual birds detected many times. The tower has also detected a few American Kestrels (Falco sparverius).

The tower detected the Lesser Yellowlegs on July 13, 2022. According to Dr. Nicholas Bayly, it had been banded in late April near Cali, Colombia, by researchers associated with Audubon Colombia and Asociación Selva, a non-profit organization supporting research and conservation in the Neotropics (selva.org.co).

After it was banded, the bird flew north and was detected by three towers in Missouri, and one in Michigan, before heading to our area. Five other MOTUS towers in our region also detected the bird, including Longwood Gardens. Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Interim Curator of Birds, says the detection highlights the value of projects like the MOTUS program, which enable scientists all over the world to collaborate on migratory research.

This map shows the flight path of the Lesser Yellowlegs detected near DelMNS.

Map data © 2022 Google, INEGI Imagery © 2022 NASA

Wild and Scenic Film Festival

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival comes to the museum with three special programs developed for students as part of Plastic Free Delaware’s initiative to bring the films to schools in the Mid-Atlantic region. Each weekend is designed for a different age group – but all are welcome – and includes approximately one hour of short featured films along with themed activities.

Join us September 9-11, October 14-16, and November 11-13. Details are below for upcoming weekends!

The Wild and Scenic Film Festival on Tour has been curating and touring inspiring film festivals across the country since 2003, but Plastic Free Delaware is the first to bring their new grade-centered film programs to schools on the east coast. We’re delighted to host the program this year.

Show times:

5 p.m. Friday as part of Flex Hour Fridays, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Free with general admission or with DelMNS or Winterthur memberships. Pre-registration is preferred for the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, regular museum admission may be purchased in advance or at the door.



October 14-16: Becoming an Activist and Activism through Art  

Geared to grades 9-12 
Featured films include:

An Alaskan Fight

Sometimes conservation can feel like an ultramarathon. In this short biopic, runner and wild fish advocate Sam Snyder fights for Bristol Bay, Alaska over the course of a decade and learns the meaning of home and place in the process.

Hidden Wild

Join science educator Alex Freeze as she takes three South Florida students on an expedition to discover the wilderness hidden in their own backyards.


November 11-13: Monarch Migration

Geared to grades 5-8
Featured films include:

Protecting the Monarch Butterfly

Monarch butterflies have one of the longest migrations of any insects, so they depend on critical habitats for their survival during their long journey. Organizations like the Pollinator Conservation Association are committed to protecting and restoring habitat to help save this iconic species.

If You Give a Beach a Bottle

Inspired by a picture book, Max Romey heads to a remote beach on Alaska’s coastline in search of marine debris. What he finds is a different story altogether.


The Wild & Scenic Film Festival School Program is partially funded by a grant from Delaware Humanities, a Delaware state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The screening of the Wild and Scenic Film Festival at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.


Our sponsors include:


The Wild & Scenic Film Festival was started by the watershed advocacy group, the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) in 2003. The festival’s namesake is in celebration of SYRCL’s landmark victory to receive “Wild & Scenic” status for 39 miles of the South Yuba River in 1999. The 5-day event features over 150 award-winning films and welcomes over 100 guest speakers, celebrities, and activists who bring a human face to the environmental movement. The home festival kicks-off the international tour to communities around the globe, allowing SYRCL to share their success as an environmental group with other organizations. The festival is building a network of grassroots organizations connected by a common goal of using film to inspire activism. With the support of National Partners: Peak Design, Hipcamp, EarthJustice, Miir and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, the festival can reach an even larger audience.

Gala & Glow

A heartfelt thank you to all who celebrated the museum’s 50th anniversary — and the completion of our metamorphosis into the new Delaware Museum of Nature and Science — at our Gala and Glow on Friday, May 13, 2022.