The NEW Children's Museum
Beginning January 31, 2009, the youngest visitors to the Rocky Mount Children's Museum & Science Center will have their own exciting new experience! The NEW Children's Museum is designed to be the ideal place to expose children to an educationally exciting resource that strengthens their motor skills, vocabulary, memory, and creative thinking. The NEW Children's Museum includes 35 interactive learning stations designed to engage "budding scientists" ages 6 months to 6 years. From exciting activities like experimenting with music and sounds, opening doors to reveal hidden surprises, matching characters to their shadows and exploring their stimulating and colorful surroundings, the NEW Children's Museum is a child's - and parent's - dream come true!

Live Animal Gallery
The Children's Museum and Science Center was awarded $147,150 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to help design, fabricate and install the final three exhibit components to the museum's live animal gallery; "Elements of Life," "Diversity in the Carolinas," and "Save Our Planet." The inquiry-based exhibits in this gallery are designed to inform our visitors about the diversity of life on this planet and how their actions affect the world we share. As visitors tour the gallery, they will experience the variety of animal life found on earth - mammals, insects, fish, reptiles, birds, etc., and the array of habitats that support these life forces (i.e., wetlands, saltwater marshes, rainforests, etc.).

As visitors enter the new live animal gallery they will experience the "Elements of Life," the forces that make life on earth possible: water, air and solar energy. This exhibit area will tickle the senses as visitors see, hear and feel water flowing around them, wind blowing through their hair, and the warmth of the sun's rays on their skin. The entrance of the exhibit presents a holistic view of earth by immediately engaging the visitor's senses of sight, sound, and touch. This total sensory experience is designed to intrigue visitors of all ages.

Space Spot
The Space Spot is a great new addition to the CMSC permanent exhibit galleries. Space Spot is a sophisticated, hands-on interactive modular exhibit with numerous stations featuring information about astronomy and the space sciences. Space Spot was produced by Pacific Science Center for the Rocky Mount Children's Museum and Science Center and is suitable for all ages.

Spot Spot Interactives Include:

A Sunful of Jupiters
How do the sizes of the Earth, Sun, and Jupiter compare? See how many scale-sized "Jupiters" will fit inside a "sun" globe. Then see how many pea-sized "Earths" fit in a single "Jupiter" globe.

Star Colors
Why is the sun yellow, while other stars are blue or red or white? Stars' colors are a result of their temperatures. Compare the colors of three light bulbs--can you tell which is hottest? Then use a knob to match the bulbs' colors to a specific temperature.

3D Constellation
Constellations are giant pictures created by drawing lines between the night sky's stars. But because stars are not an equal distance away from the Earth, constellations don't look like they do from any other vantage point. Take a trip "around" the Big Dipper (Ursa Major), and see for yourself!

For more information about Space Spot or any other exhibit or program featured by the CMSC, call (252) 972-1167.

Stuffee

Stuffee (a 9' soft sculpture health and wellness display) arrives at the CMSM on Sunday, April 18, 2010 to celebrate a very happy birthday and to help raise children’s awareness of the workings of body systems and organ donation.

Shelia Martin (one of the loving donors that helped make the CMSC acquisition of Stuffee possible) along with Rocky Mount City Councilman, W.B. Bullock officially declare April 18th as "Stuffee Day."

Friends Board President, Tracey Wesonga, introduces CMSC visitors to the our newest friend – STUFFEE.

Shelia Martin and her son Jim Pittman share their story of love, the gift of life, and organ donation with CMSC visitors.

BRAIN: The World Inside Your Head

What's more important than your brain? This quintessential organic computer is responsible for every thought, every motion and every response your body makes. Life itself is determined by brain activity. It defines the very essence of being human.

With credentials like these, it's no wonder that the brain is the subject of this blockbuster touring exhibit, BRAIN: THE WORLD INSIDE YOUR HEAD. Designed to appeal to audiences of all ages, BRAIN employs innovative special effects, 3-D reproductions, virtual reality, hands-on learning activities and interactive technology to delve into the inner workings of the brain, including its processes, potentials and mysteries.

Along the special journey, visitors will discover how the brain learns and thinks. They'll learn the secrets of sleep and dreams and the dangers, causes and cures of disorders, diseases and mental illnesses. Plus, the exhibit takes visitors into the future of medical and technological exploration of the brain.

The Experience:
We walk into a shimmering tunnel—the midst of a functioning human brain. Brain cells-neurons-engulf us. Flashing fiber-optics illuminate networks of neurons firing and communicating. A gallery of animal brains prompts basic questions: How is our brain the same as those of other animals? How are we different?

Brain Bites fly along neuronal tendrils, providing surprising messages about the size, speed, and complexity of the brain. The message is clear: Your brain is exciting. Your brain is surprising. Your brain is always changing. From this dynamic beginning, "BRAIN: The World Inside Your Head" invites visitors deeper into the brain to discover its basic workings—the fact that all brain function, everything we are and do, begins with neurons and synapses, electricity and chemistry.

Here is an exploration of the revitalizing nature of sleep and the process of individual brain development. Then a look back through history at how we've learned about the brain, with an emphasis on brain evolution, the bizarre story of Phineas Gage, and today's amazing brain imaging technologies.

Visitors then experience the reality of brain differences—disorders, accidents, irregularities. Sometimes these differences augment brain capability—for example, Albert Einstein—often they impair it, as with such common conditions as Alzheimer's, depression, addiction disorders, and others. These presentations will not only inform, they will destigmatize these conditions.

Visitors will also explore the relationship between depression and creativity, how drugs work in the brain, and the nature of pain. They will encounter the future of brain treatments in our new era of genome mapping and molecular medicine. And, finally, visitors will explore the most mysterious aspect of brain investigations, the mind and the nature of consciousness.

By the end of this experience-based, interactive adventure visitors will enjoy a new appreciation of the amazing brain. They will understand that Your Brain is You!