Spend your holidays with hedgehogs, dinosaurs, beautiful butterflies, and over 200 years of scientific discovery! The Academy is a great place to keep warm this holiday season with exciting activities for all ages. Warm up in our tropical butterfly garden, then head to the baby dinosaur petting zoo in Tiny Titans before catching up with some live turtles in Outside In! 

The Academy is conveniently located near many Philadelphia holiday destinations! We are just 2 blocks from the Comcast Holiday Spectacular, 4 blocks from the Christmas Village at Love Park and the Christmas Tree at City Hall, and 6 blocks from Macy's!

Tiny Titans: Dinosaurs Eggs and Babies

“Tiny Titans has all the scientific wonderment that appeals to children but it also reminds us grown-ups how much we loved dinosaurs.” - Geekadelphia

Get up close and touch real dinosaur eggs in Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies!

• Examine real dinosaur skin and eggshells
• visit the baby dinosaur petting zoo
• dress up like a sauropod or Oviraptor
• play paleontologist and dig for fossils

Butterflies!

While the winter weather arrives outside, it's always 85 degrees in our Butterflies! exhibit! See tropical butterflies from Central and South America, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, with 20-40 different species in the exhibit daily! 

Enjoy a Winter Wonderland in Butterflies! this December! Beautiful Morpho polyphemus butterflies will be introduced for the first time to the exhibit, which will also feature white flowers and holiday lights. The chrysalises will arrive during the first week of December and begin emerging into butterflies mid-month. Stay tuned on Facebook and Instagram for updates on when you can see Morpho polyphemus during your visit. 

Dinosaur Hall

No trip to the Academy is complete with out a visit to Dinosaur Hall! The hall was recently refurbished (November 2017) to explore the original floors as well as restoring the dinosaur pedestals. Visit the updated Past Master 3000 to walk amongst the dinosaurs yourself! Don't forget to stop into the Fossil Prep Lab to catch up on the Academy's most recent fossil finds and see real fossils being prepared to enter our Paleontology Collection! 

Live Animals

Our animal ambassadors can't wait to meet you! Visit Outside In, our children's nature center, to see and touch live animals, explore the sandy beach, and climb into the eagles nest! Catch up with birds of prey, furry mammals, and slithering reptiles daily at our Meet the Animals presentations in the auditorium (11 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. on weekdays, 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on weekends). 

Dino-mite Winter
December 27–30, 2017

Celebrate what makes the Academy great with exciting stage shows, fascinating fossils, hands-on science, and extra special specimens from our collections! Check out the Hi-BEAR-nation craft station and the Hot and Cold Diorama Challenge, meet some of the Academy's cold-blooded creatures, and see the Bugs on the Big Screen auditorium show! Click here for all of the Dino-mite Winter details.