As the Nature Science Center, which was founded by the local Junior League in 1964 and was initially situated in a barn at Reynolda Village, Kaleideum North has evolved into what it is today. The Nature Science Center relocated to its current location on Hanes Mill Road in 1972, taking over a campus that had previously housed the Forsyth County Home and Hospital, which was the forerunner of Forsyth Medical Center. The Nature Science Center has been a part of the Forsyth County community since its founding in 1972.
Originally known as the Nature Science Center, it was closed in 1992 and completely renovated before reopening as SciWorks in 1993. One of the main galleries was doubled in size, and an indoor eating room was added to the building in 2001, as part of the museum’s ongoing expansion and renovations.
The Kaleideum North complex, which is located at 400 West Hanes Mill Road in Winston-Salem and includes a structure with 30,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 15-acre environmental park, and a planetarium, is the largest of its kind in the Southeast.
Exhibit galleries feature a wide range of topics, including North Carolina geography and geology, the human body, physics (which includes a Foucault pendulum), sound, and technological advancement. A traveling exhibit gallery, which includes both nationally touring exhibits and exhibits made in-house, is also available on the second floor of the building. The BioWorks exhibit, which features both domestic and exotic animals, was completely restored in 2010.
In addition to white-tailed deer, there is a farm with donkeys, sheep, and cows on the premises of the environmental park. Elementary and middle school students can participate in a variety of interactive education activities offered by the museum. In addition, Kaleideum North offers a variety of summer camps for children of all ages, as well as camp-in opportunities for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
In 2015, the possibility of a merger between the Children’s Museum of Winston-Salem and SciWorks was first broached. As of July 2016, they were legally amalgamated, and the county commissioners approved a $17 million project to construct a new museum facility in the former location of the sheriff’s office.
The museum was given the name Kaleideum on February 7, 2017, which is a combination of the words kaleidoscope and museum.
Kaleideum announced on July 6, 2017, that Stitch Design Shop and Gensler would be the architectural firms responsible for developing the company’s new headquarters and headquarters building.
During their meeting on June 24, 2021, Forsyth County commissioners approved spending up to $27.2 million on the new facility, which is scheduled to open in 2023. The overall estimated cost is $28.6 million, with $9 million already contributed to cover the cost of the exhibitions themselves.