After much anticipation, the American Museum of Natural History has opened the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation. The first thing you’ll notice as you enter are the enormous, interconnected off-white canyon-like walls that slope magnificently all around and above you—a subtle nod to the building’s big idea: that we are all linked through something bigger and more beautiful than us. The Gilder Center is home to awe-inspiring exhibitions like the popular Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium (a live butterfly habitat) and the Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium, where you can get amazingly close to some of the coolest (and creepiest) bugs in the world.
Invisible Worlds, an immersive experience that aims to transport visitors to new realms like the 21st-century versions of the Museum’s habitat dioramas, is perhaps the most exciting and mesmerizing exhibit of the bunch. Intended to illustrate the different ways in which “all life on Earth is connected,” it offers an enchanting and emotional look at all links among living organisms at all scales—from the deepest parts of our oceans to the canopy of the rainforest to the satellites that orbit the Earth.
The pièce de résistance of Invisible Worlds is the 12-minute audiovisual kaleidoscope you’re immersed in after first encountering the main themes in an introductory gallery. You can expect to spend 30 to 45 minutes exploring the full exhibition, depending on just how much detail you want to dig into. These are the coolest parts that you definitely don’t want to miss:
Inside a lush terrarium tucked onto one side of the introductory gallery is an entire, miniature ecosystem that represents a snapshot of what you’ll find along the Amazon and its surrounding rainforest. Look closely—if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to spy the bright pops of red, blue and yellow that make the three live poison dart frogs that call the terrarium home visible amid the layers of green and brown flora.
The ultimate social network? The human brain. On display just before the immersive show, against a stark white backdrop and bathed in a spotlight that allows you to see all the nooks and crannies, is a real human brain, donated to science by an 82-year-old woman when she died. Captions highlight the ways in which human brains compare to those of elephants and why ours are so dynamic even if they’re not quite as large—and the story continues in the immersive venue, where you can step into the network of neurons powering thought and emotion.
During the immersive experience you’ll find yourself transfixed by the rapid, seamless network of roots at the foundation of one of Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems. As you use your feet to direct the water flowing through, it’s impossible to not feel at one with the tree trunks that emerge from the ground as new life seeds itself, morphing into a sumptuous forest teeming with life.
As you float up from floor to canopy in a rainforest, a simply mesmerizing soundscape emerges as countless species from birds to bugs compete for attention. This vertical journey reveals organisms large and small until up above the treeline, a flock of birds move in stunning and hypnotizing unison through the sky, alternating colors as they chart a stunning, colorful course through the skies.
The presentation continues by transporting you into the sea as some of the ocean’s most majestic creatures move in search of their next meals. Surrounded by the billions of microscopic organisms that make up 90% of the ocean’s biomass, you’ll feel the water moving over and through you as a pod of dolphins darts hungrily into schools of fish, followed by the breathtaking sight of an enormous humpback whale gliding through the water in search of plankton.