I feel so lucky to live in an area so rich in museums! My kids get to spend several days each year contemplating rooms full of Rodins, cases of ancient cultural artifacts, and galleries of contemporary art at NCMA. A stroll through the permanent collection can take us an entire day, so we try to divide up our trips by whatever artistic subjects are relevant to our studies at the time, or we may take a few hours and spend them in one of the museum’s amazing temporary exhibits. While the permanent collections are strictly hands-off, the special exhibitions often have interactive pieces, and sometimes a whole gallery for children’s discovery and creation. Outside of the exhibit halls, visitors are treated to acres of manicured walking trails that wind around and through outdoor exhibits, an amphitheatre, and a discovery garden with a great slide sculpture and sensory garden. The rolling hills of the park lead down to a wooded area with bridges and an AMAZING ‘cloud house’ built of stone and earth . 
The wooded trails loop back to the parking areas, amphitheater, and connect to a greenway that crosses the highway. Pop-up art programs are held regularly out in the small pavilion in the middle of the park, and are a great, free way for kids to connect to the art. I hope you and your family get to see some of the wonderful pieces this museum has to offer soon.
With Love, Turtle Dove
Know before you go: There are restrooms in both exhibit halls and outside underneath the amphitheatre. There are no restrooms out in the art park.
There is no charge for the museum entrance, but special exhibits usually have a fee. Children under 6 are often discounted or free.
There is food available at the art museum cafe, but you may need a reservation to be seated on busy days. It is slightly formal, and the arrangement doesn’t lend itself to play, but you can order and take food outdoors. Sip Cafe, also in the main building has great coffee and baked goods.
The museum is closed Monday, but the park is open each day, dawn to dusk.
When Alice in Wonderland said she thought of 6 impossible things before breakfast, she was probably thinking at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. The whole place is packed with imagination encouraging spaces and wonders of the animal and mechanical sort! Playgrounds, wooden treehouses connected by ladders and nets, a small creek, music making stations, lemurs, a butterfly house, mini remote controlled sailboats, really the list goes on and on. My kids love the Dinosaur trail, complete with fossil dig. There is a farm with live animals, a wild animal section with lemurs, bears, and wolves, and butterfly and insect house with all kinds of interesting creatures. There is a great train that goes around the park as well. Inside the visitor’s center, you’ll find another entire museum with great indoor exhibits, including simple machines, rockets and space exploration, fort building, and a toddler play area. Hope you and your family get to spend a few occasions exploring all that this great place has to offer!
Best of all, there is a section of milkweed, and we always see monarchs in various stages of development!! Hope your family gets to play here soon!
with a live (very sleepy) sloth. In addition, there’s a Discovery Room, full of costumes, microscopes, manipulatives, and touchables of all sorts, including live specimens! You can check out the schedule for daily movies, 3-d short films, and other paid activities, and there is always something new in the temporary exhibit hall that usually costs a small fee.
With Love, Turtle Dove 