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August 2025 Happenings at FCMoD

Posted on August 21, 2025August 21, 2025 by Krystle in Front Page

We have a few great events for the month of August! Click the links below for specific dates and times. Here’s a quick round up:

August 26, 2025 – Tuesday Night Live: Bring Nature to the City and be a Habitat Hero! While the Nature All Around Us exhibit is almost done, you can continue to bring and keep nature all around you and your community and be a hero for wildlife habitat right here in Fort Collins! Come learn how to support birds, pollinators, and other wildlife in your own yard, patio, and community spaces with the City of Fort Collins Nature in the City program and the Audubon Rockies’ Habitat Hero program. Doors open at 5:30 pm.
August 29, 2025 – Party Like it’s 1999 in the Dome Theater with showings at 6:30 and 8:00 pm. Meet fellow fans, participate in a fun craft, dress up for our photo booth, and listen to your favorite Prince tracks in full surround sound paired with mind-melting overhead projections. Snacks for purchase, cash bar and mocktails available too!
August 31, 2025 – This is the last day to come see Nature All Around Us!

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.

Nature Photographers All Around Us Photo Contest!

Posted on June 27, 2025June 27, 2025 by Bryan Simpson in Front Page

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.

June Events at FCMoD

Posted on June 18, 2025June 20, 2025 by Bryan Simpson in Front Page

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.

Tuesday Night Live June 24th – Colorado’s Groundwater: Our Hidden Treasure

Posted on June 18, 2025June 18, 2025 by Bryan Simpson in Front Page

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!

FCMoD May Events

Posted on May 15, 2025 by Bryan Simpson in Exhibits

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:

May 16^th, 2025 – Poudre School District Families! Need something for young kids to do on their day off from school? We still have space in our School Days Out Camp!
May 16^th, 2025 – Our Monthly Member Night theme for May is “Conservation and Preservation.” Come learn about our black-footed ferrets and the important conservation work being done to save the species.
May 17^th, 2025 – Please note that we will be closing early at 4:30 pm this Saturday for a private event.
May 24^th, 2025 – Nature All Around Us opening day
May 27^th, 2025 – Tuesday Night Live (still just a hold, we may not want to include it for now)
May 29^th, 2025 – Building History: The Life and Work of Montezuma Fuller
May 30^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.

Two new domes shows! Back from the Brink and World Beyond Earth.

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.

Get Ready for City Nature Challenge!

Posted on April 15, 2025April 16, 2025 by Finn Smith in Adults, Any Age, Earth & Space Science, Front Page, Life Science

At the end of this month, Fort Collins will be participating in City Nature Challenge; are you ready?

City Nature Challenge is a friendly competition between cities all over the world to see who can rally their population to log the most observations in iNaturalist in a set period of time. This year, City Nature Challenge is happening from April 25-28.

Joining the Fort Collins City Nature Challenge team is easy!

Download the iNaturalist app
1. Optional: You can also download Seek by iNaturalist, which has an in-app camera that helps identify species you point it at, and connects to your iNaturalist account
Get outside the weekend of April 25th
Upload pictures of plants, animals, bugs, or fungus to your iNaturalist account

Any observations uploaded to iNaturalist from within Fort Collins city limits between April 25th-28th will automatically count toward our score.

You can visit the City Nature Challenge project in iNaturalist by clicking here for all the details.

To learn more about how to use iNaturalist to contribute to ongoing biodiversity research, click through the link below!

iNaturalist and Participatory Science

If you’d prefer a hands-on tutorial, click here to sign up for our free iNaturalist workshop on Sunday, April 20th

FoCoMX 2025 @ FCMoD

Posted on April 9, 2025April 14, 2025 by Scott McKinney in FoCoMX, Front Page, Uncategorized

We are days away from Fort Collins’ favorite local music festival, FoCoMX! With over 400 Colorado bands performing on 38 stages, you are sure to find you new favorite local artist. This year, FCMoD is hosting even more stages, bands, and fun!

Join us for a Friday Night for a special edition of our Monthly Member Night, where both Museum Members and FoCoMX wristband holders can listen to live music and have fun in our gallery. The Otterbox Digital Dome Theater will be filled to the brim with some of our favorite folk artists, while The Launchpad Stage in the gallery will be hosting some local favorites and a few awesome emerging artists. And don’t forget to stop by our Music Garage and Jam out with our friends the Boredom Fighters.

And then join us again on Saturday for a full day of fun with FOUR stages of youth music! Our youth advisory board, The MoD Squad will help run three unique stages: The Launchpad, The Learning Labs, and The Otterbox Digital Dome Theater. This year we will also be hosting an additional fourth stage on our rooftop featuring the crowd favorite School of Rock House Band!

The MoD Squad consists of individuals ages 15-19 from across the Front Range. Squad members meet twice a month at the museum for a one-year period. During that time, they actively engage the community in a variety of ways, including reviewing applications for the Sonic Spotlight Showcase, participating in college level presentations and discussions, emceeing concerts, and much more. This year, MoD Squad members will also be helping out behind the scenes of FoCoMX at the museum.

Months ago, Squad members got a sneak peek into the FoCoMX application process. After intently looking over applications from a variety of different bands, MoD Squad had the opportunity to weigh in on which bands would thrive on FCMoD stages. Now, after becoming these bands’ newest fans, Squad members will help ensure the success of the festival by supporting backstage.

Want to see the MoD Squad in action? We’ve got you covered. Thanks to Dellenbach Motors and Visit Fort Collins, admission to the museum is FREE on Saturday, April 19^th. Add Fort Collins Museum of Discovery to your 2025 FoCoMX schedule and don’t forget to say hello to the Squad!

Thanks to:

Autism Resource Fair – April 6th

Posted on March 26, 2025March 26, 2025 by Bryan Simpson in Front Page, Uncategorized

April 6th, 2025 11 AM – 4 PM

The Fort Collins Autism Resource Fair is a free, annual event hosted by Fort Collins Museum of Discovery that provides information and support for the autism community in and around Fort Collins.

Enjoy activities for people of all ages including arts and crafts, games, face painting, Lego building, social meetups, character meet and greet, parent supports, food trucks, and much more! 

ASD-trained students from Colorado State University are available for childcare assistance under faculty supervision at no cost so that families and caregivers can interact with providers.  

We are also honored to welcome world-famous scientist and bestselling author and advocate, Dr. Temple Grandin, who will give a talk in the OtterBox Digital Dome Theater.  She will also be available to autograph books (including her newest, Visual Thinking).  

Additionally, we are honored to be showcasing the new documentary, An Open Door, in the Dome Theater, celebrating the mind and works of Dr. Temple Grandin. A Q&A panel with the filmmakers will follow.

Neurodiverse individuals and their loved ones are encouraged to explore the museum and share a day of fun. Let us help you find out more about the autism community of Fort Collins! 

Among the providers included this year are: 
The Arc of Larimer County 
CAYAC  
Foothills Gateway 
Colorado State University 
Peak Parenting Center 
Poudre School District 
The Social Learning Project 
And many more! 

*Free admission for all. The 2025 Autism Resource Fair is generously sponsored by Larimer County Behavioral Health Services Impact Fund Grant Program.

March Calendar at FCMoD!

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Scott McKinney in Front Page, Uncategorized

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:

We still have slots open for our Museum Explorers Spring Break Camp happening March 17th-21st.
Museum Explorers Camp provides a behind-the-scenes, all-access pass to everything at FCMoD. Campers will have opportunities for a hands-on exploration of music, live animals, science, local history, and more all while making friends and having fun. Each day we will dive into several activities designed to engage kids’ curiosity and creativity.
Our Monthly Member Night theme for March is “Equinox” taking place on March 21^st. Members are encouraged to bring their friends – and come space out for the spring equinox.
Tickets are still available for the “Diva Dance Party: Featuring the Music of Beyoncé” on March 28^th. Check out your favorite Beyoncé tracks in full surround sound paired with mind-melting overhead projections in the Otterbox Digital Dome.

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.

February Calendar at FCMoD!

Posted on February 12, 2025March 12, 2025 by Bryan Simpson in Uncategorized

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:

On Feb 9th and 16th we will be one of the host sites for Poudre Library Districts annual Book Fest.
On February 12^th we’ll present another Music Industry Night with opportunities for band head shots and tips on writing a great bio.
On February 14^th we’ll be a stop along the trail for Winter Bike to Work Day – pedal by for hot coffee, fresh fruit and a chance to win great prizes including an Explore 5 Membership!
Our Montezuma Fuller presentation scheduled for Feb 20^th is sold out, but never fear – tickets are now available for an added Montezuma Fuller presentation in May.
Our Monthly Member Night theme for February is “Friends” taking place on February 21^st. Members are encouraged to bring their friends – Members and non-Member friends are welcome!
Tickets are still available for the “I’m Still Standing Soiree: Featuring the Music of Elton John” on February 28^th. Check out your favorite Elton John tracks in full surround sound paired with mind-melting overhead projections in the Otterbox Digital Dome.

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.