National Museum of Natural History National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2016, with 7.1 million visitors, it was the fourth most visited museum in the world and the most visited natural-history museum in the world. Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an overall area
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Smithsonian Environmental Research Center The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) is a United States environmental research and educational facility operated by the Smithsonian Institution. It is located on the Rhode and West Rivers near Edgewater in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, near the western shore of Chesapeake Bay. The center's focus of study is the ecosystems of coastal zones, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay estuary and nearby wetlands. In 1964, Robert Lee Forrest of Baltimore left a 365-acre dairy farm on the Rhode River to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1965, the Chesapeake Center for Field Biology was established on the site