Ecotarium

CONTACT:

222 Harrington Way
Worcester, MA 01604
508-929-2700 x700
www.ecotarium.org

Stephen Pitcher, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

In 1825 14 scholars, scientists and naturalists founded the “Worcester Lyceum for Natural History”. Today the “Eco Tarium”, as it is now styled, is the nation’s second oldest natural history society, and one of the oldest museums. In its early days it presented lectures on natural subjects by Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, among others. As it evolved, acquiring properties, scientific facilities, a waxing and waning audience, and several name changes, it managed to accommodate new trends in public science education without losing its ever-growing collections of specimens and teaching materials. Today it has a new 3-story educational facility on a 60-acre site with ponds, meadow, woodlands, wetland, a 103-seat planetarium, a network of interpretive nature trails, a living collection of 60 species, a 10,000 title science library, an archive of 35,000 objects, a 3-story modern museum, state-of-the-art technology and hands-on museum pedagogy, focused imaginatively on environmental education and serving 130,000 visitors (35,000 school children) annually from all over New England. One of the stars in our Massachusetts philanthropic constellation.

(1999: NATURE: Environmental Education)