Museum Expansion Project

With a “goal to create the best energy hall in the world,” officials from the Museum of Nature & Science today unveiled plans for the new Tom Hunt Energy Hall, which will become one of the prime signature exhibit areas in the new Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park in downtown Dallas. Groundbreaking for the new facility is expected to begin in 2009.

World-class and Texas-sized, the new 6,500-square-foot gallery will be dedicated to telling the rich geological and historical stories of nature’s energy sources and exploring how science and technology are used to capture the vast array of traditional and alternative energy resources. It will also delve into contemporary energy issues and challenges facing society today. The hall will play an instrumental role enabling the Museum to fulfill its mission of inspiring minds through nature and science

The Tom Hunt Energy Hall is named in honor of Hunt Petroleum Chairman Tom Hunt in recognition of the $10 million early leadership gift that Hunt Petroleum made to the Museum in 2005 to move the Expansion Project forward.

To make the exhibits stimulating, fun and educational, the Museum will use state-of-the-art video; 3-D computer animation; thrilling, lifelike simulation; hands-on activities; interactive kiosks and dioramas; energy IQ quizzes; tabletop landscapes; animated music videos; high-resolution, computer-generated flyovers; and more. The exhibits will be accessible and user friendly for everyone from preschoolers to lifelong learners.

Paul G. Bernhard, principal of Paul Bernhard Exhibit Design & Consulting of Houston and Marina del Rey, created the hall’s innovative design and special effects, drawing upon his multi-faceted talents as a writer, award-winning PBS producer and actor, designer and exhibit developer to create the massive museum exhibit. He has developed numerous exhibits, films, musical videos and more for museums and institutions across the globe.

The Tom Hunt Energy Hall, located adjacent to the Museum’s Dynamic Earth Hall, will include six main galleries: the Geology Gallery, the Drilling & Production Gallery, the Barnett Shale Gallery, the Electrical Power Generation & Transmission Gallery, the Alternative Energy Sources Gallery, and the Future Energy Challenges Gallery. Also on tap is the North Texas Energy Hall of Fame, a tribute to the pioneers in the local industry – spanning the early years of the 20th century to the Barnett Shale developments to the alternative energy discoveries being made in North Texas today.

Visitors will begin their journey through the Tom Hunt Energy Hall with a fast-paced five-minute introductory video that explores how energy was created and formed. From there, visitors will move through the Hall, finding a broad scope of topics from the use of food, wood and whale oil as the first energy sources, to how an oil well works, to the latest innovations in energy conservation, to solar and wind power.

One major highlight of the Hunt Energy Hall will be the Barnett Shale Geology “Shale Voyager” that uses simulation, pneumatics, and huge video screens to give visitors the experience that they’re traveling down (and then sideways!) through a well in the Barnett Shale. Other highlights include the following: 

• Visitors will interact with displays to “dial up” the pressure and temperature to produce oil in the “hydrocarbon pressure cooker.”
• A large tabletop landscape surrounded by hand wheels that, when turned, will lift up sections of the landscape revealing one of the major hydrocarbon trapping formations: fault, anticline, salt dome and stratigraphic trap.
• Visitors will enter a room featuring 3-D animation on a wrap-around screen depicting how all the geologic, geophysical and well data for a reservoir are integrated to produce a detailed model of the underground layers. Using the 3-D model, they will get a chance to drill a well in hopes of hitting “black gold” instead of the commonly found “dryhole.”
• A computer model on a large screen will entice guests to “navigate” from various land rigs to offshore rig types, from very shallow water to the extremes of today’s deepwater rigs.
• Visitors will enter a larger-than-life-sized rotating drill bit to explore the technology of drilling oil and gas wells.

The Museum of Nature & Science will build a new state-of-the-art nature and science museum at Victory Park in Dallas, which will supplement the existing Fair Park facilities. The Victory Park facility will be named the Perot Museum of Nature & Science, as a result of the $50 million gift made by the Perot children in honor of their parents, Margot and H. Ross Perot. The Museum will be constructed on a 4.7-acre site at the northwest corner of Woodall Rodgers Freeway and Field Street adjacent to Victory Park.

In January 2008, the Museum named 2005 Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne of Morphosis as the architect for its new facility. Mayne is the first American in 17 years (since 1991) to be selected for architecture’s most prestigious award, the Pritzker Prize. This achievement capped a three-decade career in which Mayne received more than 100 awards and honors from across the world.

Museum leadership is seeking additional support for the galleries, displays and programming within the hall as well as throughout the entire new facility. To date, funds raised for the Expansion Project Campaign exceed $107 million. To donate to the Museum of Nature & Science, please contact Anne Haskel at 972-201-0591 or ahaskel@natureandscience.org.

For more information, please go to www.natureandscience.org or call 214-428-5555.