Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum

Explore the earth & search the stars at the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum. Tellus is a world-class, 120,000 square foot science museum located just off I-75 in Georgia at exit 293. Tellus features four main galleries: Weinman Mineral Gallery, Fossil Gallery, Science in Motion and Collins Family "My Big Backyard". A digital planetarium and an observatory are also located at Tellus.

For years my husband & I have been taking our son to the Weinman Mineral Museum in Cartersville, Ga. It has always been a great place to explore rocks & minerals plus they have a geologist on staff. We would take our rocks in & they would take the time to look at them & let us know what we had. It has always been a great place to go for minerals plus they had fossils from different areas around the world & discussed Georgia geology from prehistoric times to the present day.

They have been building a new science museum addition for the last couple of years & it was finally opened early this year. Wednesday we finally got the chance to go & boy has it changed! They didn't just add on, they totally revamped the mineral museum & built an awesome facility.

So take the tour with our photos as we go through the museum. We will start with the Mineral Gallery since that is the one that started it all. Featured exhibits include over 50 cases of gems, gold, and some of the world's most prized minerals.

A hugh piece of copper boulder.

Stare into the jaws of a Tyrannosaurus rex, catch a glimpse of a saber-tooth cat and discover how life on Earth began in the Fossil Gallery. This walk through billions of years of history takes visitors past skeletons of dinosaurs, reptiles and mammals of all shapes and sizes that dominated the land, sea and air.

I think this one is the Elasmasaurus.

Take a stroll through history & discover the early break-throughs in automobile manufacturing featuring electric, steam and gasoline-powered cars. A special portion of the gallery is dedicated to the men who first traveled into space. A replica Apollo I capsule, a Mercury capsule and a replica of Sputnik are all on display in the Science in Motion Gallery.

Noah in the space suit.

They have a fossil dig & gem panning room where the kids can become miners & paleontologists. They can uncover fossils to take home & the precious gem stones they find are theirs to keep as well.

We went with a homeschool group & this is Noah with some of his friends.

There is also a room called "My Big Backyard". This is a hands on room where kids can experiment with light, rainbows, mirrors and more in the greenhouse. There is a shed filled with sound experiments, a garage where they can discover properties of magnets and work with electricity. A really fun room which we didn't have much time for...next time we will have to hit that first.

We skipped going into the Planetarium to eat at the Cafe. We were with a large homeschool group so the shows were running around 15 mins each. My friends who went in were not impressed with the show but I think they shortened them so that everyone would get a chance to go in. Normally Planetarium shows run every 45 minutes beginning at 11am on weekdays and 10:15 on weekends. So we will have to go on our own one day & see how the show is on a normal day.

If you are ever in north Georgia (north of Atlanta), plan on stopping by the Tellus Museum. It is open everyday except major holidays. The admission is $12 for adults, Seniors (65+) $10.00, Children (3-17) $8.00. You can also become a member & then admission is free. For more information go to http://www.tellusmuseum.org/ -