A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help museum visitors learn about the natural history of Colorado, Earth, and the universe.

The 716,000-square-foot (66,519 m2) building houses more than one million objects in its collections including natural history and anthropological materials, as well as archival and library resources.

The museum is an independent, nonprofit institution with approximately 450 full-time and part-time staff, more than 1,000 volunteers, and a 29-member board of trustees.

In 1868, Edwin Carter moved into a tiny cabin in Breckenridge, Colorado, to pursue his passion, the scientific study of the birds and mammals of the Rocky Mountains.

After years of preparation and construction, the Colorado Museum of Natural History finally opened to the public on July 1, 1908.

In 1927, a team led by the Colorado Museum discovered two stone projectile points embedded in an extinct species of bison, in Folsom, New Mexico.

Displays include skeletons and skulls of prehistoric animals (synapsids, dinosaurs and others): Dimetrodon, Eryops, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, Edmontosaurus, Maiasaura, Megacerops, Archaeotherium, Hyaenodon, Merycoidodon, Stenomylus, Merycochoerus, Moropus, Dinohyus, Hesperotestudo, Gomphotherium, Synthetoceras and Teleoceras, a sea lily reef diorama from 435 million years ago, a cast/replica skull of the ancient placoderm fish, Dunkleosteus, and a collection of trilobites.

The Wildlife Halls in the museum are: Level 3 Wildlife Halls: Birds of the Americas Explore Colorado (also known as Explore Colorado: From Plains to Peaks) Northern and Rare Birds (also known as Birds of North America) South America (also known as Sketches of South America) Botswana, Africa (also known as Africa-Botswana: Sharing a Fragile Land and Botswana: Safari to Wild Africa) Level 2 Wildlife Halls: Bears and Sea Mammals (also known as Into the Wild: Bears and Sea Mammals and North America's Bears and Northern Sea Mammals) Edge of the Wild North American Wildlife (also known as North America's Wild Places and Scenes of Change) Australia and South Pacific Islands (also known as Australia and South Pacific) Out of all of the dioramas in the museum listed here, only one, Western Brazil,[15] which depicted wildlife on the Brazilian savanna, was removed for not being scientifically accurate, because it included animals that didn't naturally interact with each other in the wild.

[16] However, at least three pieces of evidence that prove that the diorama did exist can be found in the museum: one being a cropped image of the screenshot of the diorama's brocket deer from the museum's 1961 annual report in Edge of the Wild, and the other two being the scarlet macaw and blue-fronted parrot found in the glass case at South America's entry wall.

[20] In addition to the exhibit halls, skeletons of Tyrannosaurus rex, a pair of Thalassomedon and a fin whale, as well as a replica of the Chief Kyan totem pole, can be found in the rotunda.

Renovated and reopened in 1983 as the Phipps IMAX Theater, it seats 440 people and now shows large-format films daily.

[37] The Morgridge Family Exploration Center constitutes three above-ground levels that encourage visitors to learn about science and the natural world.

The center includes Exploration Studios, a new temporary exhibition gallery, an atrium space, a completely redeveloped Discovery Zone for early learners, and the outdoor, Boettcher Plaza with unique public art.

The facility includes 63,000 square feet (5,900 m2) in two underground levels, and holds specimens such as bison from the 1870s, passenger pigeons, the last grizzly bear to be killed in Colorado in 1979, and roadkill brought in by the public.