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WELCOME TO THE JERSEY EXPLORER!

This Winter & Spring our schedule will be limited. Call for more information 973-673-6900 or 908-385-5443

 

Jersey Explorer Exhibits:                

The Tomb of the Ancient Kings:  A two level Egyptian tomb.  Visitors must seek the mummy by following clues and navigating their way through a maze of secret doors and dark passageways. Visit the archeologist’’s station at the entrance to the exhibit and try your hand at hieroglyphics and assembling our ancient treasures.

The Stargazer – Journey to Sakar:  A spaceship where visitors become the crew.  Children come aboard the Stargazer for a one hour journey across a distant galaxy.

The Stargazer Science Stations: Check your weight on the moon and the planets. Try on the Astronaut’s spacesuits. Design your own NASA patch. Make up your own Sci-Fi planetary system. Take on a range of science challenges set up in our spaceship on Saturdays.

Main Street:  A small town of scaled down buildings, caves and a storyteller’s tree.  Main Street has a doctor’s office, a café, a grocery store, Veterinarian’’s office, a construction company, a fishing boat, a bus and much more.   Periodically the village changes its theme and setting.  This year the culture of Louisiana is featured on Main Street.

Storytellers Theater/Gallery The focus of this theater is most often on our storytelling and special presentations. The Gallery space is currently showing a portion of our Vietnam Memories-Stories Left at eh Wall exhibit, our Split Second Stories – Moments in Time and Life through the Eye of a Camera and Black Cowboys of the Wild, Wild West.    

The Time Traveler:  Our history based immersion exhibits utilize multimedia and theater to take visitors on journeys through time.   We are currently offering two Time Traveler ‘destinations.”

                           -TT Destination – 1855 - A Trip on the Underground Railroad

                            -TT Destination – 1963 - Joining the Birmingham Children’s March

                            -TT Destination – 1945 - Homefront at the Soda Fountain (Not currently offered) 

Roscoe’s Place:  Welcome to Roscoe’s place, a room filled with activities of all kinds. Try our Geo Map Challenges.

Jukebox Timeline Diner:  Step into our vintage soda fountain where each wall is dedicated to a decade running from the 1940s to the 1990s.  Check out Jukebox Timeline computer station and take a tour through history. Join our staff in looking at the decade and dancing to the  music of an era.

Exploration Station:  Welcome to an explorer’s camp.  Take a tour on our touch screen Wonders of the World program and check out our discovery trunks and Explorer’s Kits from around the world.

Call 911: Ever wonder what they carry on an ambulance.  Curious about the equipment.  Check out the presentation and hands on activities at this station

Other  Museum Presentations and Programs

  • Scienceworks: Hands-On-Science: These activities and demonstrations help visitors to learn the relevance of science in daily life. Included in this years programs include: You won’t believe your eyes, Light It up - Electricity, The Out in Space Astronaut Race, and Making Snow

  • Art Cart: Hands on art activities and demonstrations for our youngest visitors

  • Off The Page Story Theater: Join us for stories and music from all over the world

  • Roscoe’s Puppet Shows: Come meet Roscoe, and his crew of very disorganized, uncooperative and challenging puppets. .

Special Programming and Presentations

Each year the Explorer produces a variety of special programs, holiday events, and international festivals both in the museum and in the surrounding park.   

Jersey Explorer Reading Programs

  • Jersey Explorer / Bridge of Books Distribution Program: Each year, with the tremendous support of the Bridge of Books program in central NJ, , we help to distribute thousands of children’s books to schools, camps, after-school program and children who visit the museum to children in schools and programs throughout the North Jersey area. . Again, Thanks, especially, to Bridge of Books and also thanks to the M. Jerry Weiss Children’s Literature Library at NJCU, we expect to distribute over 7,000 books to children this year.)

  • Jersey Explorer Magazine and Time Traveler Publications: Our magazine and special Time Traveler booklets that focus on each of the Time Traveler exhibits are distributed to visitors to encourage reading and vocabulary development as well as to provide additional information to the children on the exhibits that they visited. (Check for availability)

  • Books of all kinds are everywhere in the Explorer. Parents are encouraged to show and discuss the many books that are displayed in the exhibits.

Museum Outreach Programs

Museum Connections:  Museum Connections is the museum’s regular program of outreach presentations. Each year the staff of the Jersey Explorer will bring presentations and activities to children in schools, summer camps and after school programs throughout northern New Jersey and southern New York state.  

The Jersey Explorer Traveling Museum Program – Vietnam Memories: Stories Left at the Wall

Vietnam Memories - Stories left at the Wall has proven to be one of the Explorer’s most popular and powerful programs.  NJ Youth Corps members take an ordinary classroom in a high school and convert it into a museum exhibit complete with carpeting, special lighting, 18 display cases, 100 mounted photographs and letters and over 150 personal items that people have left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial  - “The Wall” in Washington DC. 

This exhibit, which has been seen by over 140,000 people, is one of the largest and the most successful museum high school outreach program in the United States.  Vietnam Memories is operated as a partnership with the National Park Service.

 

Explorer - Daily Program Schedules

This winter we are on a limited schedule. The museum will be opened to schools, programs and other groups on Wednesdays and Thursdays and to families, youth groups, clubs and individuals on the 1st Saturdays of the month. Our hours are 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. We are happy to host your child’s birthday party.  Call for more information (973-673-6900 and 908-385-5443).

On a typical field trip day at the museum children will join Explorer Teams  and will visit between 4 and 6 of the programs and exhibits outlined above during the  two to three hours that they spend at the museum.  All children are given the opportunity to select and take books home with them when they leave the museum. On Saturdays, parents, grandparents, friends and family become the teachers.. Our exhibits are set up to be explored independently and with the assistance of parents and the museum team of volunteers..