Month: June 2025

Calling all photographers!

 

FCMoD is hosting a nature photography contest and 15 people will win a free Membership! The Nature Photographers All Around Us Photo Contest celebrates the rich biodiversity of our area and the camera skills of our community. This friendly competition encourages you to get out in nature and take pics with whatever camera/phone you have at hand. In keeping with the themes of our special exhibition, Nature All Around Us, we’ll have five submission categories (Yards & Gardens, Urban Forests, Parks & Open Spaces, Rivers & Streams, Main Street) and three age brackets (youth 12 years and under, teens aged 13-19 and adult 20+).

The top submission in each category/bracket will win a free year-long Membership to the museum! That’s 15 Memberships up for grabs!

Submissions process is open now through July 20th!

Learn more and submit photos HERE.

 

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We’ve got many great opportunities to come engage at FCMoD this month. Click the links below for specific dates and times. Here’s a quick round up:

• June 19^th, 2025 – Museum Closed
• June 20^th, 2025 – Member Appreciation Party! At FCMoD, we are always very grateful for our members, so please join us for a night of nature-themed fun to thank you for your support. We invite you and your loved ones to enjoy snacks (limited on a first-come, first-serve basis), drinks, and tons of family-friendly activities. We can’t wait to celebrate with you!
• June 25^th, 2025 – Bike to Work Day – City of Fort Collins Stop by the museum on your ride to work to grab a little treat and enter to win some great prizes.
• June 27^th, 2025 – Tickets are still available for the Pink Pony Party featuring the music of Chappell Roan with showings at 6:30 and 8:00 pm. Meet fellow fans, dress up for our photobooth, and listen to your favorite Chappell Roan tracks in full surround sound paired with mind-melting overhead projections in the Otterbox Digital Dome.

Our Black-footed Ferret Feedings happen the first and third Saturday of every month starting at 9:30 am. At 10am on the second and fourth Saturday every month you can Meet the Animals in our live animal exhibits. Every Saturday at 1pm you can stop by for “Tonight’s Sky” a live presenter Planetarium Show exploring what planets and constellations we’ll see in our region this month. And as always, we’ve got Dome Shows six days a week in the Otterbox Digital Dome Theater all month long.

It’s a great time to come visit the museum!

• Event dates and times are subject to change, please check our museum calendar for the most up-to-date information.

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 Digital Earth:  Colorado’s Groundwater: Our Hidden treasure

         Fort Collins Museum of Discovery Tuesday 24 June 2025

Join us on for Colorado’s Groundwater: Our Hidden Treasure, another mesmerizing Tuesday Night Live event on June 24^th when we present Colorado’s Groundwater: Our Hidden Treasure. KaChun Yu and Bob Raynolds of the Denver Museum of Science & Nature will reveal Colorado’s best kept water secret – groundwater! Yu and Raynolds will introduce us to Colorado’s Ogallala and Araphoe aquifers – finite resources that are rapidly diminishing. Using immersive imagery, we will discuss where this is heading and how these resources can be managed more sustainably.

The Ogallala aquifer irrigates corn used as feedstock for cattle, pigs and ethanol plants. In the 1930’s farmers hoped rain would follow the plow, but their square fields dried up and blew away with the wind. Discovery of the Ogallala, coupled with center pivot and centrifugal pump technology, allowed green crop circles to appear. Falling water levels, coupled with diminished flows and obligations to downstream states are forcing abandonment of these center pivot wells. The farming culture and economy is on the cusp of a transition to non-irrigated, no-till farming. This will involve high tech precision ag and farm consolidation. The circular fields are reverting to squares. Our program features space and ground-based imagery of these patterns.

South of Denver, the 2000 feet deep Arapahoe aquifer occurs in a buried alluvial fan that fed into the Denver Basin 68 million years. Water pumped from this aquifer allowed the rapid growth of communities like Parker and Castle Rock.  Water levels fell precipitously (up to 30 feet per year) until the aquifer transitioned from confined to unconfined conditions.

Continued fall and dwindling production rates will increase pumping costs. Alternative sources of water will need to be found. High tech water recycling coupled with conservation and regional cooperation are already showing the way.

This talk features 3D modeling of the aquifer and discussions of geologic settings in Bolivia that furthered our understanding of the subsurface geology and geometry of this important aquifer.

This event is Pay What You Can. Please register HERE.

See you at the Museum!

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