Sneek Peak of the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science

Andy Anway's company, Amaze Design, created the exhibit areas at the Perot

Dinosaurs! Space suits? A DIY biolab! Cool things to do with kids!

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, that large gray cube on the north edge of downtown with the landscaped roof and soaring escalator appendage on to the building’s outside edge, opens to the public on December 1.

I took a sneak peak earlier this week and left impressed.

Pritzker Arrchitecture Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis Architects designed the $185 million, five-story structure to amplify the museum’s mission to “inspire minds through nature and science.” This is a really good start.

“Every gallery here has at least one ‘wow’ exhibit,” says Andy Anway, whose company, Amaze Design, created interior designs and exhibits for museums around the world, including the Perot. “As soon as you enter the front door, no matter where you look, there’s something to hook you, to take your breath away. We are drawing you into science and you don’t even know it.”

From soaring dinosaur skeletons unearthed in North Texas to stunning computer-generated animations of the universe to a child-friendly Bio lab where kids examine their own cheek cells under microscopes (and even extract DNA from fruit flies), the exhibits are all designed (and kid-tested) to be interactive and fully immersive.

Here’s your chance to experience an earthquake, touch a tornado, climb a scale model of the Dallas skyline, and take a 9,000-foot virtual journey down a gas well in the Barnett Shale.

“Lots of museums try to show you how science is interconnected to everything,” Anway told me, “but this museum is really nailing it.”

Perot Museum of Nature and Science, 2210 N. Field St., Dallas, 214-428-555 or perotmuseum.org