The Discovery Room at the Yale Peabody Museum!

The Discovery Room is one of the most popular destinations at the Yale Peabody Museum, visited by more than 60,000 people a year. Full of touchable specimens and hands-on activities, the Discovery Room also houses interesting live animals from both around the world and right in your own backyard — an African lungfish that breathes air, endangered poison dart frogs from South America, a giant African millipede, bearded dragons from Australia, and a harmless eastern milk snake from New England.

The Yale Peabody Museum’s Discovery Room is a chance for families, and especially children ages 5 to 12, to explore the Museum’s collections.

See live giant silk moth
caterpillars feeding!

The Discovery Room’s most important rule is “Please Touch!” Filled with a large sampling of materials that reflect the Museum’s impressive collection of 11 million specimens and artifacts, the Peabody’s Discovery Room is a place where children, accompanied by adults, can discover natural history through a variety of hands-on games using artifacts and specimens, including challenges such as:

• Try to find all 16 colorful live poison dart frogs
  in their the rainforest habitat
• Touch a 100-million-year-old fossil
• Compare your height to that of a mature black bear
• Count the legs on a giant African millipede
• Learn to identify tree bark by touch
• Walk on replicas of dinosaur tracks
• Connect the bones of a rabbit
• Observe the African lungfish, which can live
  out of water in a “cocoon” for up to 3 years
  

Volunteers introduce visitors to the many features and hands-on exhibits of the Discovery Room. Long-time volunteer Barbara Barrett welcomes visitors of all ages.


The Discovery Room is located on the second floor of the Yale Peabody Museum and is free with general admission during regular hours. To avoid overcrowding, entry into the Discovery Room is staggered and space may be limited.

At right: The life-size Apatosaurus painting in the Discovery Room.

Support-An-Animal Program

The good health and survival of these Discovery Room animals depends on carefully balanced daily diets of fresh fruits and vegetables, assorted dry foods and nutritional supplements. These specialized diets are costly. By supporting one or more of our animals, you can help assure that these animals receive exactly the food they need.

Why support an animal? Because:

• It’s fun and educational.
  
• It connects you to other places in the world. It’s great to know you are helping animals.

Individuals, families, businesses, schools and civic organizations are invited to support an animal in the Discovery Room. Sponsorships make wonderful gifts for your animal-lover friends and family. Pick your favorite animal(s) from the Support-An-Animal Program list. Download and fill out the form below and send it with your donation (tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law).

I want to support an animal in the Discovery Room!
Download the form here [PDF 3.1MB]

We will send you:

• A certificate of support.
  
• A fact sheet on your animal.
  
• A photograph of your animal.
  

All proceeds from the Support-An-Animal Program are used for the care of the animals in the Discovery Room. For more information, contact:

Support-An-Animal Program
Public Education Department
Peabody Museum of Natural History
P.O. Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118 USA

203.432.6919
peabody.education@yale.edu

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