New Hands-On Exhibit Area at Natural History Museum

Imagine a cross between a children’s museum and a natural history museum. That’ll give you a clue to the brand new Ralph M. Parsons Discovery Center, the state-of-the-art exhibit area that opens at 1 p.m. today at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Plenty of please-touch exhibits, lots of helpful docents to show children how and help them figure out why. It’s the sneakiest way to get children interested in science since Sputnik.

And forget that old adage that the zoos get the live animals and the natural history museums get the dead ones. Just inside the entrance is a salt-water aquarium stocked with brightly colored tropical fish. Farther on, there is a vivarium that displays California pond life. Other live creatures include an Argentine horned toad, tarantula, whip snakes and kangaroo mice.

How-to’s of Dioramas

The taxidermy area will give the family a behind-the-scenes look at how dioramas are made. Here everyone will be able to touch the displays and learn how taxidermists work.

Drawers filled with specimens of butterflies, bones, feathers, seeds, minerals and more can be pulled out and put under microscopes. You can even bring specimens from home to examine. Fifty Discovery Boxes, with games and puzzles on science subjects, can be checked out for gallery use.

The center, just off the rotunda, will be open shorter hours than the museum, and admittance will be monitored to prevent overcrowding. Today’s hours are 1 to 3 p.m. Regular hours, starting Sunday, are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. Museum admission is $3 for adults, 75 cents for ages 5 to 12, $1.50 for students. The museum is in Exposition Park. Information: (213) 744-3426.