Free admission to Durham Western Heritage Museum

Under a new partnership with the Durham Western Heritage Museum, UNMC, UMA and The Nebraska Medical Center employees and their families will be admitted free by showing their employee ID badge.

Burgess Shale exhibit Douglas Erwin, senior scientist and curator in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., will present a lecture on “The Burgess Shale: Evolution’s Big Bang,” later this month at the Durham Western Heritage Museum. “The Burgess Shale: Evolution’s Big Bang” is an exhibition on loan from Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. It will be on exhibit at the Durham Western Heritage Museum until March 12. Erwin’s hour-long lecture on Tuesday, Jan. 17 will begin at 6:30 p.m. At 5:30 p.m., visitors are welcome to preview and tour the exhibition. Using fossils, lifelike models, scientific illustrations and interactivities, the exhibition highlights events of the evolutionary upsurge that occurred more than 500 million years ago. The Burgess Shale fossils, found high in the Canadian Rockies, include the ancestors of virtually all known living animals and provided the first window on early multi-cellular life. Erwin’s research has included studies of the evolutionary dynamics of Paleozoic gastropods, the causes and consequences of the end-Permian mass extinction (252 million years ago) and the nature of evolutionary innovation, particularly during the diversification of animals some 550 million years ago.

The Time Travelers program is the second partnership that provides free admission to one of Omaha’s cultural/historical institutions. A family admission includes two adults and any dependant children under the age of 21. Students also are invited to visit the museum’s permanent collection, as well as traveling exhibitions, at no cost.

UNMC launched a similar partnership with the Joslyn Art Museum last year. That program, titled Passport Partners, allows UNMC, The Nebraska Medical Center and UMA employees, students and their families free admission to the Joslyn Art Museum and ticketed exhibitions by showing their employee ID badge at Joslyn’s entrance desk. A free admission includes two adults and accompanying children during general admission hours, which are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. The Joslyn Art Museum is at 2200 Dodge St.

At the Durham Western Heritage Museum, employees may visit the permanent galleries, as well as the current “With an Even Hand: Brown vs. Board at Fifty” exhibit which runs through Jan. 15. On loan from the Library of Congress, the exhibit is a collection from the historical case of segregation in schools.

The Durham Western Heritage Museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. It is closed Mondays and major holidays. The museum will close at 1 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. For more information on the Durham Western Heritage Museum, visit www.dwhm.org.

Watch UNMC Today for additional details and benefits of the new partnership.