Cook Museum of Natural Science — Attraction in Decatur

I visited the Cook Museum of Natural Science with my child's class on a field trip. We were the only school group during our time there, as far as I know. From the moment we arrived (by school bus) we were met with professionalism and courtesy. Our primary guide met the bus and took care of getting us into the building with our lunches and the students to their class science activity/lesson. Due to the classroom size parents were not able to attend.

There were eleven parents attending and we all met in the café area and several of us purchased food and/or beverages. I had a peanut butter and berry smoothie which also contained yogurt. It was really good and I would definitely have it again. I didn't buy any other food from the cafe, but there are many breakfast and lunch options that I hope to try in the future. The prices were really reasonable for a museum (about $5 for the smoothie and food varied based on meal time).

After the class lesson we toured the museum as a class. We were color coded and all members of the group wore a wrist band in the group color. Our indoor (read: air conditioned) lunch area was also designated according to the group color.

We had two guides through the museum (our original guide Kara and another lady whose name I forget) and everything is very well planned. The students are limited to one or two areas at a time (biology, wetlands, space, Earth, rocks/minerals, etc.) and Kara acted as our "stop sign" so no one got away from the group. The areas/rooms/stations are (probably) timed so that the kids have enough time to check out most everything but don't have time to get bored. They definitely kept us moving but it never felt rushed.

We ended up at our lunch area where we had lots of long, clean tables and chairs and plenty of room to spend out. I should mention that there were only about 32 total people in our group, so we didn't need a lot of space.

After lunch the students had time to look around the gift shop and make purchases. I was pleasantly surprised that pretty much everything was really reasonably priced. My child got a nice sized stuffie for $12 and everything else seemed reasonable, too.

It was a really great trip. I had a great time and the students seemed to enjoy the trip, too.

My family will definitely be going back...

I’ve lived in the Tennessee Valley for a while now and rarely heard about the Cook Museum. It’s a shame, because we recently went and were blown away! This is a really neat place! It’s located in downtown Decatur - easy to get to. It’s loaded with things for kids of all ages - even adults will enjoy it! It has a cave you can walk through, treehouses, aquariums, bears, birds, insects, etc. It has some really cool technological activities like kinetic sand where you can make a volcano and see it erupt and change landscape with different seasons ; a handheld microscope wand to examine various nature exhibits like animal teeth, butterfly wings, plants, etc. My 14 year old son spent probably 20 minutes with the microscope, but wanted to stay longer. We got there right at opening on a Tuesday and had the place to ourselves for the most part. I imagine it gets busier later in the day. The place is immaculately clean and there are staff members throughout to guide or answer any questions you might have on an exhibit.

It has a large gift shop and even a small eatery inside. Bathrooms were very clean.

Honestly, I was not expecting this museum to be that cool, and was blown away. They really should advertise more and work with local schools for field trips to get this place more known. It is definitely worth a visit. We definitely plan to...

My wife and I visited the museum today and were very impressed with every aspect of the facility, exhibits and staff. The quality of the facility easily matches or exceeds what you might find in a major metropolitan city. One potential difference is that the entire facility looks very CLEAN and well cared for! Completed in 2019, the range of activities and exhibits are varied, educational and entertaining for children and adults. I did not see a single “do not touch” sign, nor any greasy fingerprint marks! The only small-town element of the museum is the friendly and informative discussion on museum history, development of exhibits and key facts related to information provided by the staff. The pride of those working at the facility shines through. The taxidermy specimens include some of the finest I have ever seen. There is a magnificent bald eagle display, a unique bee colony with wonderful views of busy activity, a display of colorful butterflies and many others interesting exhibits and electronic displays. After our visit, we purchased and enjoyed chicken salad sandwiches in the food shop (smoothies, sandwiches, soups, and salads). This is not a huge museum, but it is packed with a very large volume of information to absorb and enjoy. If you are passing near the Decatur area, I highly recommend you drop by for a couple of hours...