The museum the community built
Downtown's other museum runs on a different fuel than the Strip: the Las Vegas Natural History Museum was founded by a small group of local volunteers who believed Las Vegas deserved a natural history museum, and 'Part of the Community' (2022) shows it still run that way — volunteer and internship programs cultivating the next generation of scientists, anthropologists and museum professionals. Across nine galleries, the set tours the range: the morning-show interview introducing Nevada Rocks!, the geology gallery where visitors meet the state's minerals and learn how stalactites and stalagmites form drop by drop over thousands of years, handling the rocks that built Nevada.
Priests, sharks and parties
The museum's signature is people in character. 'Living History' films an interpreter as Beruty, high priest of Anubis, teaching young visitors the ancient Egyptian art of mummification step by step — the 70 days the process takes, what happens to the pharaoh's soul, the sacred oils and the incision. The 30th-anniversary talk (2021) explores ancient Egyptian banquets and pastimes as preserved in tomb paintings, perfumed greetings at the door and all. Shark Week's film sets the extremes side by side: the smallest sharks in the world against the whale shark, a gentle filter-feeding giant averaging about 12 metres and reaching nearly 19 — longer than a school bus. Two short visual films — the newest exhibits (January 2024) and the museum's own highlights reel — close the set as watch content.
Who it's for
Families doing downtown properly: this museum pairs with our DISCOVERY Children's Museum page a few minutes away — one all hands-on play, one specimens and stories — and with the Neon Museum and Mob Museum for the full downtown culture run. It's also the budget counterweight to the Strip's ticketed attractions: a volunteer-founded community museum whose films are almost all its own staff teaching. Nothing here is a thrill ride; everything here is a person who knows a thing showing it to a kid.
Sources: the seven videos on this page — the museum's own films (Living History, a geology-gallery interview, a community film, Shark Week, an anniversary talk, and two visual reels) — summarized from their entries in our catalog.