Saturday, May 2, 2026
Noon-4pm

Birdwatching requires a combination of skills: a watchful eye, a patient demeanor, and a working knowledge on what local birds look like, sound like, and where you might best find them. At this First Saturday Open House, be an ornithologist by practicing your bird watching skills in the Wagner’s Teaching Garden. Visitors can imitate bird calls and learn tips on how to accurately identify our flying friends. And join us at 1pm for a talk in our lecture hall on Philadelphia area birds and where to find them by expert birder Holger Pflicke.

Saturday, April 4, 2026
Noon-4pm

The Wagner's Entomology Collection boasts a lot of bugs: iridescent beetles, pinned butterflies, millipedes in ethanol, and more—with a significant selection collected right here in Philadelphia. At this First Saturday Open House visitors will learn about insect behavior and eating habits, learn tricks for capturing bugs in the wild, and discover different techniques for insect preservation. With the help of an entomologist, folks will also get the chance to pin their own insect specimen to take home with them.

Saturday, March 7, 2026
Noon-4pm

Are you a 21st century naturalist? Do you have natural materials collected on a personal expedition but can't figure out the scientific classification for your findings? Come have your specimens identified by a panel of science experts at the Wagner’s Natural History Road Show! Visitors can meet and chat with scientists who specialize in insects, fossils, bones, shells, rocks, and minerals. If you don’t have a specimen to bring, see if you can stump the panelists with one of ours.

Saturday, February 7, 2026
Noon-4pm

Writing down our ideas—as words and images—gives them power and helps us communicate across centuries. For writing to last, stylus must meet surface and create an indelible mark. Thomas Jefferson University chemistry professor Dr. Thomas Twardowski will present a set of demonstrations that illuminate the traditions and materials of written communications. Try your hand at papermaking, examine materials to reveal hidden colors and patterns under the surface, and probe the sticky interactions that make drawing, writing and coloring possible.

Saturday, December 6, 2025
Noon-4pm

During this special open house, learn all about what makes different minerals special and how humans utilize them in our daily lives. Join us at 1pm for a talk on Mineral Oddities by Karenne Snow, and at 2:30 pm for a glowing demonstration of Fluorescent Minerals by Bruce Mitchell - both longtime members of the Philadelphia Mineralogical Society. We will have a selection of minerals for sale, a great opportunity for those looking to start or grow their own scientific collection!

Saturday, November 1, 2025
Noon - 4pm

Get up-close-and-personal with live bats from PA Bat Rescue and learn how these spooky creatures help our ecosystem thrive! Visitors can also view skeletons, spiders, and other spooky specimens in our collection, decorate paper bat masks, and try their luck at a mystery touch table and guess a specimen by feel. Adults & children are encouraged to come in costume! Dress up and snap a photo with spooky specimens from our teaching collection AND a life-size cut-out of our founder William Wagner!

Saturday, October 4, 2025
Noon - 4pm

Over the summer we replanted the Wagner's teaching gardens, removing invasive species and adding a variety of native plants designed to attract birds, bees, monarch butterflies and other pollinators. Garden designer Christina Doe will provide tours of the gardens and botanist Dr. Kate Goodrich will give a presentation on the pollination ecology of the native pawpaw. There will be young pawpaw plants, grown from seeds in our yard, and a few other select plants for sale to plant in your own garden.

Saturday, September 6, 2025
Noon - 4pm

This Open House is being heldin collaboration with Founder's Hall at Girard College, a free educational institution founded in 1831 as a school for orphaned boys. Founder Stephen Girard inspired William Wagner to start his own free institution and you can learn more about the connections between these two National Historic Landmarks by touring both during our paired Open Houses.

Saturday, May 3, 2025
Noon - 4pm

What can real-life observation—of skeletons, fossils, and other natural specimens—teach us about the inner workings of humans and animals? Join the Wagner and The Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library in learning about anatomical structures, how the study of anatomy has developed since the 19th century, and the vital role museums and their collections play in advancing scientific knowledge.

Saturday, April 5, 2024
Noon - 4pm

Join the Wagner Museum and our community partners, The Discovery Center, The Land Health Institute, and Sanctuary Farm, in spotting the different signs of spring! The Wagner will have binoculars, magnifying glasses, natural identification guides, and friendly staff on hand to help visitors learn from the different natural resources in our yard.

Saturday, March 1, 2024
Noon - 4pm

Spring is almost here—get ready to forage by learning all about mushrooms during our March First Saturday Open House! The Wagner will be open from 12 to 4 pm for an afternoon packed with hands-on activities, museum exploration, and fun for all ages in our Victorian natural history museum. As part of the program, Sam Bucciarelli, President of the Philadelphia Mycology Club, will present "Introduction to Mushrooms," an overview of everything you want to know about the kingdom of fungi.

Saturday, February 1, 2025
Noon - 4pm

Explore deep time and evolution at Wagner's February First Saturday Open House! Contemplate the nature of time among the museum's vast fossil collection and learn about the evolution of hearing through a special musical performance by paleontologist Matthew Bonnan. His captivating pop/rock song cycle, Once Upon Deep Time, tells the story of how we came to perceive sound based on what is known from the fossil record and the living world around us.

Saturday, December 7, 2024
Noon - 4pm

Shelter from the cold this December during the Wagner's First Saturday Open House! Happening on Saturday, December 7th from 12pm - 4pm, visitors will dig up and identify different types of shark teeth, craft paper snowflakes, and learn about the history of the Wagner. Covering the life of William Wagner, founding of the Institute, and the architecture of our building, the history of the Wagner talk will be given at 1pm and again at 3pm.

Saturday, November 2, 2024
Noon - 4pm

Flexibility is a kind of strength! A tree bends in the hurricane but does not break. A snake slithers through a branch and does not fall. A crab scuttles to safety under a rock. Learn how we can harness bendy ideas from nature. Join the Wagner Free Institute of Science, in partnership with Thomas Jefferson University Chemistry Professor, Dr. Thomas Twardowski, for an afternoon exploring the ways flexibility occurs in nature.

Saturday, October 5th, 2024
Noon - 4pm

From quartzite to kyanite to garnets—Philadelphia is home to a vast array of regional minerals. Join us on Saturday, October 5th as geologist Bruce Mitchell from the Philadelphia Mineralogical Society engages visitors of all ages in learning about Philadelphia’s rich geological landscape. Bruce will share facts about, and images of, minerals collected by the Philadelphia Mineralogical Society.

Saturday, June 1, 2024
Noon - 4pm

Meet the Turtles! with faculty and students from Saint Joseph's University Biology department. This special Open House will feature talks by Dr. Scott McRobert on the loss of biodiversity on our planet and possible solutions. Throughout the day, partners from St. Joe’s will lead live demonstrations and activities including opportunities to interact with exotic animals who live in the Biodiversity Lab, a conservation site for the study and management of endangered species.

Saturday, October 7, 2023
Noon - 4pm

October’s special theme is FlightFest: All About Birds! This Open House falls in the middle of the annual migration of birds south for the winter, and Philadelphia is perfectly in the path of the Atlantic Flyway. Learn about migratory birds and the challenges they face on their travels. Bird Safe Philly will demonstrate ways to protect native and migrating birds from collisions with buildings, a major cause of bird fatalities.

Saturday, May 4, 2024
Noon - 4:00pm

Space Rocks! May the Fourth be the day you visit the Wagner! We’re looking to the stars for May’s First Saturday to celebrate the ways space can be even more fascinating than in science fiction. At 1:00 and 3:00, hear from Dr. Alexandra Krull Davatzes from Temple University about on her work as a part of the HiRISE Camera Team. HiRISE is taking photos of the surface of Mars to understand major flooding events. If you’re ready to head to space yourself, get ready for stomp rockets, a Mars Rover design challenge, solar observation, and more!

Saturday, April 6, 2024
Noon - 5:30pm

There is a lot of misinformation about reproduction that is passing for science, and it often finds its way into some of society’s most contentious debates. Dr. Scott F. Gilbert, the Howard A. Schneiderman Professor of Biology (emeritus) at Swarthmore College, leads this year’s Westbrook Lecture, Let's Talk About the Birds and the Bees: Science and Myths of Human Reproduction, on a journey into these controversial subjects and more.

Saturday, November 4, 2023
Noon - 4pm

November’s special theme is The Chemistry of Clean: Art & Science of Soap Making! What does pH balanced mean? Why are there shells in my soap? Join Dr. Thomas Twardowski from Thomas Jefferson University will share his vast knowledge of suds and surfactants. Everyone will have a chance to make (and take) their own soap, too!

Saturday, February 3, 2024
Noon - 4pm

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act this year, we will be joined by acclaimed artist and author Allen Crawford, whose most recent book, A Wild Promise, beautifully represents in lavish full-color illustrations eighty animals that embody the spirit and commitment of the Endangered Species Act. He will give short talks about his art and process to create the book as well as his abiding passion for nature and for preserving the habitats - oceans, mountains, deserts, prairies, and forests - where animals live.

Saturday, December 2, 2023
Noon - 4pm

A Peek into the Archives - Teaching What the Eye Can’t See. This Open House will feature early teaching materials from our archives, including examples of ink and watercolor teaching charts made by Joseph Leidy of microscopic organisms and lantern slide photomicrograph used to teach Botany, Mineralogy, and Entomology in the 1890s and early 1900s. There will also be a historic microscope on view with slides in the Lecture Hall.