Charlotte families have something wonderful growing in the woods beside Freedom Park. On the site of the former Discovery Place Nature, the new Charlotte Museum of Nature is taking shape — a reimagined museum from the Discovery Place family designed around the Piedmont’s own forests, creeks and wildlife.
The stars of the new museum will be North American river otters, its signature animal ambassadors, with an outdoor habitat where families can watch them swim, dig and play from a ground-level pavilion or from a terrace above. A Tree Canopy Walk will lift visitors into the branches, with a viewing platform called The Nest, while Piedmont Explorations brings guests nose-to-nose with the region’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects.
Little naturalists get their own corner in Saplings, a space for children up to six, and the Naturalist Lab invites young scientists to mix experiments, art and music inspired by the wild. Outside, a pollinator garden with a bee apiary and the Frog Bog water garden — free for everyone to enjoy — tie the museum into Freedom Park and the Little Sugar Creek Greenway.
The museum continues a Charlotte nature-education tradition that began in 1951. Happy City News will share opening news as Discovery Place announces it — for now, families can follow the project and peek at the plans on the museum’s official site.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
