The Chicago Academy of Sciences is creating an environmental museum of the 21st century.  Located in Lincoln Park on the banks of North Pond, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum will be the first new museum building built in Chicago's parks in more than six decades.  A place where visitors into the next century, providing a mix of educational opportunities and interactive experiences unique to this facility.

Location
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum will be located on the northwest corner of Fullerton Parkway and Cannon Drive, on the banks of Lincoln Park's North Pond.

Architecture
Designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Perkins & Will, with the award-winning Ralph Hohnson as lead designer, the Nature Museum embraces the natural landscape of park and pond.  Extensive glass and multilevel open-air terraces enable visitors to connect with nature outside as they view exhibits inside. 

Structure
The 73,000 square foot building will house exhibit space, and auditorium, a food-service area, activity rooms and more.  It will be the first museum in Chicago to include computer networks and information links in its infrastructure.

Exhibits
Designed by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership, the Museum's exhibits will allow visitors to see nature in new ways.  Visitors can walk among 15 to 25 different Midwest species of butterflies in Butterfly Haven; meet the tiny creatures that inhabit every city home in City Science; participate in problem-solving simulations based on probable environmental issues in Environmental Central, learn the impact of rivers and lakes on daily life in Water Lab; and explore the biodiversity of the Midwest in Wilderness Walk.  The Nature Museum will also feature a kid-friendly Children's Gallery designed to teach children aged three to eight about the environment.

Community
The Academy is working with area residents to restore the pond and surrounding park as a viable habitat for native plants and wildlife.

Cost
The Nature Museum is being funded by the $30 million Campaign for the 21st Century.  The Chicago Park District has offered $9.4 million, to match contributions for the building and exhibition development.

Opening
Fall of 1999

History
Founded in 1857, the Chicago Academy of Sciences was the first museum in Chicago.  It is the only museum to specialize in the ecology and natural history of the Midwest, from the Great Lakes to the prairies, natural to urban areas.  Fro 142 years, the Academy has been a vital resource for Chicago citizens, school children, teachers and visitors, occupying an important niche in the chicago
cultural community.

An indoor-outdoor museum.  Taking advantage of its unique setting, the Nature Museum will offer indoor/outdoor experiences-topics and issues addressed inside the museum can be explored outside.  The museum will be a place where visitors can understand the past and present of our natural world and discover ways to achieve a sustainable future.

Sensitivity to the North Pond site.  At over 73,000 square-feet, the new museum will provide more than twice the exhibit space of the Academy's former home, but will remain entirely within the footprint of the old maintenance facilities that used to occupy the site.  In fact, the Academy will increase green space in the park by returning more than 20,000 square feet of paved surface to grass and landscaping. 

Stat-of-the-art exhibits.  Designed by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership, the Museum's exhibits will allow visitors to see nature in new ways.

Community support. Through the museum-planning process, the Academy worked closely with community leaders to ensure that park interests and traffic concerns were addressed.  The Academy's plan for a new museum at the North Pond site was the impetus for the development of the Lincoln Park Transit Task Force, a coalition of community, City and Academy members.

Continuing commitment to urban environmental education.  The Academy is a nationally recognized leader in urban environmental education.  During the 1997-1998 school year, our Ecological Citizenship, and Science on the Go! programs worked with 513 teachers and 18,000 students in 46 Chicago Public Schools.  The CAoS Club program worked with 300 teachers and 9,000 students in 129 Chicago Public Schools.  The new museum will enhance the Academy's ability to deliver trend-setting environmental education programs in Chicago's communities and schools.

Exhibits at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum share a common philosophy--the people learn best by questioning, sharing, discussing and doing.  Butterfly Haven, Environmental Central, Wilderness Walk and other interactive exhibits do more than present scientific facts.  Each exhibit presents a host of intriguing situations that challenge visitors to connect with science and the natural world.  Nature Museum exhibits are intended to provoke questions and elicit surprise, triggering conversations that transform observers into active participators.

Among the Museum's permanent exhibits are:

Butterfly Haven

What's the difference between a moth and a monarch?  What do butterflies eat?  You will find the answers to these questions and more in the 4,000 square foot Butterfly Haven, that includes a 28-foot tall greenhouse a-flutter with live butterflies and moths!

City Science

Gain a whole new perspective on nature when you tour this 3,000 square foot, 2-story house.  The infrastructure has been peeled away so you can meet the creatures that inhabit every city home.  You will understand how every ;time you flip a switch, or turn up the heat in your house, you are tapping into processes being conducted hundreds or even thousands of miles away.  City Science provides an opportunity to investigate the relationships that link urban living to the natural world.

Environmental Central

In this theatre-style, 3,600 square foot setting, participants work together to make decisions on subjects such as land development, natural disasters, water use, and pollution.  For example, in one scenario you could be part of the Water Emergency Team, solving the region's water shortage.  Do you send water to everyone who needs it?  How do you get it from one place to another?  Where can you find more?  What are the consequences if you take it from another source?  Supported by computer databases and a wealth of research material, you will attempt to solve region-wide problems and learn how seemingly unrelated environmental events have a profound effect on one another.

Water Lab

Lake michigan and a working model of an urban river are the focus of this hands-on laboratory.  In the Water Lab, you'll learn how our system of rivers and lakes affects daily life.  Investigate how the local river system works, what the human impact is on the river, and learn about all the plant and animal life that the river supports in the 2,200 square foot exhibit.  You can even test chemical properties of your own water samples. 

Wilderness Walk

Wilderness Walk will take you through a variety of different ecosystems, where you will begin to understand how plants and animals are affected by natural forces, like droughts and fires.  Walk-through dioramas recreate the prairie, woodland, and lake shore habitats that once characterized this region.

Children's Gallery

Where can a four-year-old dig under the prairie, or swim into a beaver lodge and not get soaked?  IN the Children's Gallery--a kid-friendly area designed specially for children ages three to eight.  1,300 square feet of soft, safe space provide a place where young visitors can explore two native environments: a wetland and a prairie.  Underground and aboveground exhibits take kids through a world of scientific fun.  Throughout the exhibit are comfortable spots for adults and kids to sit and talk, read, think, and wonder.

Outdoor Exhibit

The area immediately surrounding the Nature Museum, including the North Pond itself, will be the museum's largest exhibit.  The Museum's setting will greatly enhance its indoor exhibits and activities-offering ample opportunities for outdoor programming.  the site's landscape plan combines native plant species with other plantings that are attractive to wildlife.

Bill Nye, scientist/inventor/comedian/teacher/author, is a man with a mission.  He's out to turn kids (and in particular, kids of both genders and all colors) on to  the "way cool" wonders of science!  With his weekly, half-hour television series, Disney Presents Bill Nye the Science Guy," he's letting kids know that science is not only cool, it's powerful.  After all "Science rules!"

Making science entertaining and accessible is something that Bill has been doing for most of his life.  Humor runs rampant in his family--"...we just get together and laugh: -- and his parents made sure he knew the value of education.  Bill discovered he had a talent for tutoring in high school, and while growing up in Washington, D.C., he spent his summers de-mystifying math and science for fellow students.  When he wasn't hitting the books, he was hitting the road on his bicycle, which he spent hours taking apart and re-building, to "see how it worked."

Bill's fascination with how things work led him to Cornell University and a degree in mechanical engineering.  After graduation, he headed for Seattle to work as an engineer at Boeing.  "I've always loved airplanes and flight," says Bill.  "the space program was really important to me as a kid.  I still have a photo of Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon in my living room."

It was in Seattle that Bill began to combine his love of science with his flare for comedy, when he won a Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night.

Eventually, he segued into a fortuitous combination of both science and comedy as bill Nye the Science Guy, performing and writing on KING-TV's late-night ensemble comedy show, "Almost Live!"  (also seen on Comedy Central), guesting on the Disney Channel's "Mickey Mouse Club," and answering science and science-related questions on local and national radio programs.  With fellow KING-TV alumni Jim McKenna and Erren Gottlieb, Bill has also made a number of award-winning educational videos and programs for school-age and adult audiences, among them "Fabulous Wetlands" for the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Along with his duties as head-writer of "Disney Presents Bill Nye the Science Guy,"  for which he recently received a 1996 Daytime Emmy Award, Bill is also the author of Bill Nye the Science Guy's big Blast of Science, an introductory science text from Addison-Wesley Publishing Company and Bill Nye the Science Guy's Please Consider the Following- A Way Cool Set of Science Questions, Answers and Ideas to Ponder from Disney Press.  Outside of the Science Guy realm, his career as an inventor is off to a flying start:  Bill was just issued a patent on a collapsible, water filled magnifying glass.

In the space of 40 short years, Seattle's favorite stand-up scientist hasn't changed much from that kid growing up in Washington D.C.  He still rides his bicycle to work (he also serves on the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Board in Seattle) and has tutored inner-city pre-teens and teens as part of the "I Have A Dream" program, aimed at keeping kids on track towards college and university studies.

With everything he's accomplished so far, Bill feels his work has really just begun.  "My modest little goal," he chuckles, "is to change the world."  Sharing the wonder and the joy of learning is what keeps Bill on the go.  From the Redwoods to the Everglades, from Johnson Space Center in Houston to Wilcox Solar Observatory at Stanford University, Bill Nye is a man with a mission...to help foster a scientifically literate new generation.  And as long as Bill is fascinated with how the world works, it's a safe bet that kids will be, too.
 

Contacts:
Barbara Warren 
Buena Vista Relevision
818/560-3325