Topics Related to Kids' Activities

All eyes will be on the skies Friday, Feb. 14, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. as the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher (NCAFF) hosts the Great Backyard Bird Count. NCAFF environmental educators will inspire the community to join the count and launch newly minted bird counters on an exciting journey to earn an NC Bird Count badge. Special activities throughout the day offer an exciting time for anyone and everyone to help scientists gather information on birds in the state to support their conservation.

The Mountain Gateway Museum will have a soft opening and Christmas open house at its temporary home! Ready to celebrate holiday cheer, visit us at 78-C Catawba Ave., from 1-4 p.m. Dec. 14 before the annual Old Fort Christmas parade.

America250, the official nonpartisan entity charged by Congress with planning the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Semiquincentennial, in collaboration with BNY and America 250 NC, kicked off the second installment of “America’s Field Trip” — a nationwide scholastic contest where students have the opportunity to earn a special behind-the-scenes experience at an iconic American historical and cultural site.

Get buggy with it when the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosts BugFest on Saturday, Sept. 14, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Come satisfy all your web weaving, wing flapping, dungball rolling, creepy crawling and (of course) bug munching pursuits in one day!This year, BugFest spotlights butterflies and moths. Did you know that our state butterfly is the Eastern tiger swallowtail? And in 1587, colonist and artist John White depicted the Eastern tiger swallowtail while accompanying Sir Walter Raleigh’s third expedition to the New World.

 In the early 1970s, the voices of three children transformed the future of North Carolina’s coastal environment when the sand dune known as Jockey’s Ridge was set to be leveled and developed for residential housing.

First appearing approximately 230 million years ago, the hearty crocodilians — alligators, crocodiles, caimans and gharials — have survived nearly every earthly scenario. They have outlived dinosaurs, ice ages, mass extinctions and more, yet they have changed very little over time. Find out all you ever wanted to know about crocodilians, plus a menagerie of wild reptiles and amphibians from North Carolina and around the world, at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’ Reptile & Amphibian Day, Saturday, March 9, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh announces the completion of a globally unique visitor experience — Dueling Dinosaurs — opening to the public Saturday, April 27. This combination of high-tech research lab and dynamic exhibit space is the first physical expansion of the Museum in more than a decade. Visitors will be able to immerse themselves in the Age of Dinosaurs, become familiar with the tools and techniques used by today’s paleontologists, and engage with the scientific team actively researching the iconic tyrannosaur and Triceratops.

Leading women scientists in the Cape Fear region will highlight the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher (NCAFF) 2023 Femme in STEM Saturday, Sept. 16, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. With exciting hands-on activities and experiments, visitors will have the opportunity to look through microscopes, experience a tornado machine, and even get their hands dirty with some soil samples.

Take A Child Outside Week, an international initiative spearheaded by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, kicks off Sunday, Sept. 24 and runs through Saturday, Sept. 30. 

Join the Museum of the Albemarle on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. for a Celebration of Regional Tribes. Guests will have the opportunity to interact with members of regional tribes, who will share their cultural traditions and ties to the land. The museum will have a Take-It-Make-It packet with educational information on regional tribes and activities. The Gypsy Shack will be face painting between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. special symbols that relate to nature, the earth, and animals.