This army of luminous frogs, looking for all the world like something plucked from the imagination of Lewis Carroll, sets a playful tone for the exhibitions within Dallas’s new Perot Museum of Nature and Science (2201 N. Field S., Dallas; 1-214/428-5555). Occupying a cube-shaped building designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Thom Mayne, the 16,000-square-meter museum is an ambitious—you could say Texas-size—tribute to the full spectrum of science, with 11 exhibit halls (including a children’s museum) dedicated to everything from cosmology and geology to extreme weather, engineering, dinosaur fossils, health, and bird life. Expect interactive experiences amid all the facts and artifacts: visitors can try to outrun a T. rex, program a simple robot, open a huge amethyst geode, and—this being Texas—explore a drilling rig. –David Tse

This article originally appeared in the February/March 2013 issue of DestinAsian (“Science Lessons”)