If your kids are dinosaur-obsessed (or ever went through a Jurassic Park phase), get ready for something amazing stomping into South Jersey! A massive new fossil museum is about to open, and you and your crew can experience dinosaurs like never before, right here in New Jersey. We got a sneak peek before it’s set to open at the end of the month, and it’s epic!
The Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University cost $75 million over 7 years to build – and it’s beyond. The 44,000-square-foot facility sits on 123 acres, and overlooks a 4-acre quarry where you can dig for real fossils! It won’t open to the public until March 29, but here’s what we learned during an early look at the impressive grounds.
The History of the History Museum
World-renowned paleontologist and founding Executive Director Kenneth Lacovara, Ph.D., gave us an exclusive tour of the museum he helped bring to life. He and his team have been excavating the site for more than 20 years and have uncovered over 100,000 fossils representing 100 different species about 40 feet beneath the fossil park. These discoveries include mosasaurs, marine crocodiles, sea turtles, and sharks that once lived in what is now New Jersey.
Having searched for fossils in the Sahara, the Himalayas and Patagonia, he joked, “I finally found what I was looking for in the pit behind the Lowe’s.”
This project is extra special for him, since he is from South Jersey: he grew up in Linwood, attended Mainland High School, and graduated from Glassboro State College before getting his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware.
Exploring the MuseumÂ
The museum is well laid out so that you move sequentially from Act 1 to 2 to 3, according to Dr. Lacovara. Start with the history of creatures native to New Jersey, learn about their extinction, and then leave with a sense of hope about how to save the planet. The purpose is to “Discover the Past, Protect the Future.”
First up, you’ll take a seat in the theater, where you’ll watch a 5-minute animated video called “Our Place in Time” which sets the stage for your visit. It talks about where humans stand in geological time.
As you walk down the hallway, look up at the skeletons of the mosasaur, Sabre-tooth salmon, dryptosaurus and Pteranodon.
Starting in the Dinosaur Coast Gallery, you’ll see incredible replicas of dinosaurs and reptiles that lived along the East Coast of North America during the Cretaceous Era, 66 million years ago. Paleoartist Gary Staab created everything from the models to the plants in the dioramas to the dino trackways to the electronic interactives. Even the merchandise sold in the gift shop is based on Staab’s models.
Perhaps the most exciting display is of hadrosaurus, which is the world’s first complete skeleton. It was found in 1858 in Haddonfield, about 11 miles from the museum! The display shows a mama whipping her head around because a giant dino across the walkway is about to steal her baby. There’s also a crawl-through space so kids can get nose-to-snout with the baby hadrosaur.
The scenes are incredibly lifelike, giving visitors a realistic glimpse into prehistoric life—such as dinosaurs locked in battle or a shark attacking a marine reptile. You’ll see ancient seabirds with teeth (unlike today’s toothless birds), horseshoe crabs, and even the earliest mammal to roam the Earth (affectionately called “your grandma” by Dr. Lacovara). There’s also a feathered dinosaur called Ornithomimus, posed as if it’s sprinting at 30 mph.
The soundtracks add another immersive layer, letting you hear creatures breathing, growling, roaring, and moving through the brush. Several times we caught ourselves looking around because it sounded so lifelike.
Don’t leave this section without taking part in the activities. If you buy an Explorer Key, it gives you access to a variety of interactive kiosks that link to your own individual page on the museum’s website. Try the fossil scavenger hunt – great during a rainy or winter visit – where you find 12 boxes hidden throughout the museum and scan the fossils inside. You can also try your hand at a paleontological dig, which has you unearth fossils via a video screen.
For the “littlest littles,” as Dr. Lacovara says, there are a series of 10 secret windows low to the ground with dioramas that tell a story. Kids can join Marty the Mammal as he goes on a wild adventure through the tiny exhibits, and they’ll get a map (and coloring page) to mark off their journey.
We can almost guarantee they’ll love the exhibits of dino poop, too.
Next up is the Monstrous Seas Gallery, which is lit by darker, blue lighting, to give the impression you’re under the sea. Look up to see a gigantic 55-foot mosasaur – a marine reptile, not a dinosaur – or look down using the microscope to check out specimens.
There is a crow shark, sea turtle and ratfish on display, plus a magic wall behind the exhibit that comes alive with projections of rays.
Walk through to the Hall of Extinction & Hope, where you’ll learn about the asteroid that hit the earth 1,500 miles off the coast of modern-day Mexico 66 million years ago and killed 75 percent of the world’s creatures at the time (called the Fifth Extinction). There’s another short, animated video here, plus a wall of extinct animals.
Walking around the corner you’ll learn about the Sixth Extinction, which we are experiencing now, caused by humans. You’ll marvel at the beautifully detailed animal replicas along the walls, but you might also feel a pang of sadness when you discover these creatures are extinct or endangered because of us.
Another activity is the screen wall called What’s Really Overheating Our Planet?, where you stand on an X and wave your arms to determine what is causing climate change.
The final section of The Hope Gallery is based on “Act Now,” and has a video splashing across two large walls; while the interviewees talk in the film, a memento they’ve donated to the museum lights up. At the Act Now kiosk, you can scan your Explorer Key for extras like a reading list, scheduled events, and suggestions like how to build a bee hotel or pollinator garden.
“You have the ability to make positive change in the world before you leave the walls of the museum,” Dr. Lacovara said.
For Kids & Kids At Heart
The Discovery Forest is geared to families and school groups, and there is a TED-Ed theater that will show any of 70 short animated films, kiosks where kids will be asked questions and then open drawers to see fossils and preserved animals, posters highlighting the works of scientists, mechanical interactions, and lots of room to move around. There could be a TED-Ed Club started for kids in the future.
You can’t access the Conservation area, but the doors and windows are glass so you can watch from outside as staff members and volunteers work on the fossil acquisitions. We did get exclusive access and saw hundreds of cabinets and drawers housing the fossils for safekeeping.
Next up is Critter Cove, an aquarium-like experience. There are plans to have a reef tank; interactive saltwater touch tank with sea stars, urchins and horseshoe crabs; rats, which are related to the first mammal; a Savannah monitor lizard, whose cousin is the mosasaur; and certain insects and amphibians, like a hissing cockroach, giant millipede or poison dart frog.
Journey to Other Worlds
There’s an epic virtual reality space called Expedition Voyager which is unique to EFM because it’s a free-roaming space, and you’ll be able to see the other people in your group as you play.
After a briefing, you’ll go back in time in a pod, end up in the ocean with a mosasaur as you try to get to the beach, collect DNA and biomedical info, and ID the dinos before the asteroid hits.
There’s no age requirement for the 15-minute experience, but kids must be able to wear the headsets to play. A separate ticket is required.
The Quarry
This may be the most exciting part of the entire museum experience. Another add-on to your base ticket, you can sign up for a walk down to the quarry and climb the dirt piles to search for fossilized sponges, iron, shark teeth, turtle shells or dino bones.
Dr. Lacovara said that as you move through the five geological formations – Ice Age to Mammals to New Jersey Marl to Post-Apocalyptic Ocean to the Quarry Floor, you are moving 300,000 years back in time with every footstep along the path until you head back 66 million years.
Kids will love getting their hands dirty as they scrape through the mud. Our group of adults had fun trying to find specimens that weren’t regular rocks, and were most impressed when someone found a clam.
From 2011 to 2019, Community Dig Days were open to the public here, drawing thousands of people who wanted to dig for fossils. Dr. Lacovara said this is “proof of concept” that people want an authentic experience of scientific discovery. He said people love this “transformational moment” because it makes a connection “between yourself and the earth’s ancient past.”
Whatever you dig up can be brought to the kiosk for identification, and then you get to keep it as a memento. This makes a true connection between what you see inside the museum, in the movies, and real science, Dr. Lacovara said.
The quarry dig experience will open on May 1, and be open through October. There are restrooms, plus handwashing and foot washing stations, to dust kids off before they get back in your car. Dr. Lacovara said this will be a safe spot for preschoolers since they’ll dig with plastic shovels.
There’s also an area where families or school groups can assemble, or events could be held (like a potential Winos + Dinos event).
Free Time Traveling
There are plenty of experiences that don’t have an additional cost to your ticket. When you pull into the parking lot you’ll see a dinosaur-themed playground. Pterosaur Pterrace has a Pteranodon flying reptile with a 45-foot wingspan that you can climb up and down.
There’s a beach area, slides, a separate section for smaller kids, and a 35-foot-long allosaurus fossil replica that will be buried every night under sand so that kids can dig in the morning.
Parents will be happy to know that the area is gated, with only one access point – and there’s also WiFi.
Leading up to the building will be the Cretaceous Gardens, with 38 native species whose ancestors grew in the Mid-Atlantic during the Cretaceous Period, adding to the authenticity of the property designs.
There are also outdoor nature trails to explore on your own time. You can also access the veranda from outside of the museum, and sit with lunch or a cup of coffee while overlooking the quarry.
Merch & Snacks
Back inside, off the lobby, is the Quarry Grounds café, where you can get coffee roasted on the grounds of the museum, plus sweet treats from Amici Mullica Hill (our favorite was a macaron with a stamp of a mosquito, as a nod to Jurassic Park, plus the super cute T-Rex shaped cookies) and charcuterie boxes from Gather to Graze, both located in Mullica Hill. The Artisan Marshmallow Co. in Pitman is working on dino-shaped marshmallows.
There is seating inside, or take your snacks to the veranda.
On the opposite side is the Darwin & Co. Retail Store, whose purpose is to pique your curiosity and bring your memories home, Dr. Lacovara said.
Darwin’s Study, a section inside the gift shop that is modeled after Darwin’s home in England, is a fun nook for young kids to sit, play or read a book.
Fun Facts About the Museum
- There are no fossil fuels used at the fossil museum. This will be one of the country’s largest facilities with net zero carbon emissions.
- The museum uses Ornilux bird-safe glass. Dr. Lacovara explained that windows look clear to the human eye, but birds will see a spider web-like design due to their ability to see ultraviolet light, and thus avoid flying into the windows.
- The dryptosaurus that is hanging in the lobby is part of the tyrannosaurus family – and is the only dinosaur there (the others are marine or flying reptiles).
- In the virtual reality room, the wallpaper does not have any repeating patterns so that the camera can locate each player at any time.
- The outdoor space near the quarry, the veranda, the theater, the café and the museum itself can be rented for events. Email events@efm.org for info on everything from birthday parties to weddings.
- You can apply as a volunteer at the museum.
The Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University will open on March 29. The location is 66 Million Mosasaur Dr., Mantua Twp. Tickets are already on sale, and start at $29 for adults and $24 for kids ages 3-12. Memberships are available.
See some behind-the-scenes action via our Instagram page.
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