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Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
The mission of the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC) is to foster curiosity and a spirit of discovery in visitors of all ages, enhancing public understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, science, and human cultures. HMSC works in concert with Harvard faculty, museum curators, and students, as well as with members of the extended Harvard community to provide interdisciplinary exhibitions, events and lectures, and educational programs for students, teachers, and the general public. HMSC will draw primarily upon the extensive collections of the member museums and upon the research of their faculty and curators. -
Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Harvard Museum of Natural History was established in 1998 as the public face of three research museums: the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Mineralogical & Geological Museum. Presenting these incomparable collections and the research of scientists across the University, the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s mission is to enhance public understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the human place in it, sparking curiosity and a spirit of discovery in people of all ages. -
Fisher Museum at the Harvard Forest
The mission of the Harvard Forest is to develop and implement interdisciplinary research and education programs investigating the ways in which physical, biological and human systems interact to change our earth. The central focus on research and education has been unchanged since the Forest's founding in 1907. -
Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
The core mission of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments is to preserve, document, and care for over 20,000 instruments portraying the history of science teaching and research at Harvard from the Colonial period to the 21st century. Through its lively exhibit and teaching programs, web presence, and increasing involvement in critical media practices, the CHSI’s research activities and cultural initiatives intersect and bring together a multiplicity of academic disciplines and areas of professional museum expertise. The CHSI is both a specialized institution and an experimental space, where Harvard Faculty and students, instrument scholars and museum experts meet in the production of object-based knowledge. -
Harvard University Herbaria
The Harvard University Herbaria include six collections and more than five million specimens of algae, bryophytes, fungi, and vascular plants. Together they form one of the largest university herbarium collections in the world, and the third largest herbarium in the United States. With their state-of-the art research laboratories and world class libraries, the HUH have been a centerpiece of biodiversity science since the early 1800s.
