About Us

Serving a regional audience of all ages and many interests, the Museum of Arts and Sciences is a community resource for life-long learning and enrichment. As Georgia’s largest museum devoted to the arts and sciences, the Museum seeks to engage visitors, evoke wonder, stimulate curiosity, and open minds to new worlds of discovery. Open seven days a week, the Museum serves 85,000 visitors annually, including 25,000 school children. In 2006, the Museum celebrated 50 years of service to Middle Georgia and beyond.

ART AND SCIENCE GALLERIES

Because it has a broad mission and desires to serve numerous constituencies, the Museum showcases changing and permanent exhibitions in both the arts and sciences. The Museum presents an extensive schedule of changing exhibitions, many from its permanent collection, traveling exhibitions, or private collections. The Museum has hosted several wonderful exhibitions including Fired By Genius: The Ceramics of Pablo Picasso, Mysteries of Egypt, American Glass: Masters of the Art, A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie, Sunlight and Shadow: American Impressionism, The Art of Tiffany, Legends of Our Times: Native Ranching and Rodeo Life on the Plains Plateau, Empire of the Sultans: Ottoman Art from the Khalili Collection, Destination: Dinosaurs, and Leonardo: Renaissance Man. Upcoming exhibitions include Miss America 1953: Neva Langley Fickling, Art in Bloom and Heaad to Toe. The Museum also hosts annual displays including work by local school students in Protégé and holiday festivals from around the world in Celebrate!

THE DISCOVERY HOUSE

The Discovery House features three floors of interactive exhibits exploring art, science, and humanities. The top floor features the Artist’s Garret, which allows visitors to create their own works of art with simple supplies or sit quietly in the Dream Room, listening to the sounds surrounding them. The Humanist’s Study, on the main level, showcases some of the Museum’s permanent collections including butterflies, arrowheads, dolls, and much more. In the basement, Scientist’s Workshop visitors can communicate through whisper tubes, figure out how things work at the workbenches, and dig for fossils in the Ziggy Dig, which is below an installation of the 40 million-year-old whale fossil, Zygorhiza.

THE MINI-ZOO

Adjacent to the Discovery House, the Mini-Zoo is centered around a replica Banyan Tree and is home to the Museum’s collection of live animals. Housing a variety of animal species, the Mini-Zoo contains forest, pond, and desert habitats. The Museum’s living collection contains approximately 70 animals, including invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Tours of the Mini-Zoo are presented to visitors daily.

MARK SMITH PLANETARIUM

The Mark Smith Planetarium has taken audiences on journeys through time and space for over 40 years. The planetarium's star projector recreates the night sky with over 4,000 twinkling stars. More than 30 computer controlled slide projectors, video projectors, special effects, and a surround sound system create environments for learning about the final frontier. Planetarium shows are presented daily. Each Friday, the Sky Over Macon program provides the latest information about current and upcoming celestial events. The Museum Observatory features several telescopes for taking close-up looks at far-out celestial objects. The observatory is open every Friday night when the sky is clear and also during special astronomical events.

BROWN’S MOUNT

Brown's Mount is a 200-acre satellite site offering environmental education in a natural setting. Located at the transition between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain southeast of Macon, the Mount is a rise of red clay with a limestone cap marking the fall line, a prehistoric ocean shoreline. This mixed hardwood / pine forest overlooks the 6,000 acre Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Multiple habitats, microhabitats, and wildlife are available for study at Brown’s Mount.
Management of Brown's Mount has been transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For programing information, please contact the Piedmont and Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuges at 478-986-5441 or www.fws.gov/piedmont

GEORGIA POWER SWEET GUM TRAIL AND ELAM ALEXANDER OUTDOOR CLASSROOM

Offering visitors a wonderful view of native plants and animals, a pond, and the historic Kingfisher Cabin, the writing retreat of Henry Stillwell Edward, the Georgia Power Sweet Gum Trail is available for guided and unguided tours. Both the nature trail and outdoor classroom are used for educational programming.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING

Approximately 25,000 school children from 59 Georgia counties participate in guided tours and programs each year. The Museum also offers separate classes, labs, lectures, films, field trips, camps, and receptions for children and adults, all of which explore a variety of themes and issues in the arts, sciences, and humanities.

MUSEUM STORE

Located near the main entrance, the Museum Store provides educational products and beautiful art objects for Museum visitors to purchase. The store often carries merchandise related to current exhibitions. The store is open during Museum hours.

HOURS AND ADMISSION

The Museum of Arts and Sciences, located at 4182 Forsyth Road in Macon, Georgia, is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Sunday 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m, and the last Friday of every month 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Admission is free for Museum members, and is $8/adult, $6/senior; $6/military; $5/student; $5/children 12 and over; and $4/children 2 to 12 for non-members. Prices, exhibits, events, and dates are subject to change. For more information, call (478) 477-3232 or visit our website at www.masmacon.com.