National Geographic Museum of Exploration to Debut the Esri Geoverse Immersive Theater June 26

The National Geographic Society announced the debut of the Jack and Laura Dangermond | Esri Geoverse, a 270-degree immersive theater opening June 26, 2026 at the new National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington, D.C. Launch programming includes "Geography in Action" and "A Day in the Desert," developed with Esri and Moment Factory.

The National Geographic Society announced the debut of the Jack and Laura Dangermond | Esri Geoverse at the new National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington, D.C., a 270-degree theater designed to immerse visitors in the fieldwork of National Geographic Explorers. The Geoverse opens to the public on June 26, 2026, alongside the rest of the museum, with launch programming developed in partnership with Esri and Moment Factory.

Inside the Geoverse

The Geoverse serves as a capstone to the National Geographic Learning Launchpad, the museum's dedicated geography-education wing powered by Cengage. Developed with Moment Factory, the theater centers on what the Society calls geographic inquiry — examining the world through the lenses of place, patterns, layers, scale and time — and is built to foster what the institution refers to as an "Explorer Mindset" in every visitor.

Two Launch Programs

The Geoverse opens with two distinct experiences in rotation. "Geography in Action" uses 270-degree visuals and field tools like GPS tracking to transport visitors to Botswana's Okavango Delta and Peru's cloud forest, following National Geographic Explorers Charles Mpofu and Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya. "A Day in the Desert" takes a different tack, building a diorama-style interactive playscape that lets younger visitors explore the wildlife and plants of Australia's Great Victoria Desert through simple, active gameplay.

A Longstanding Partnership with Esri

The collaboration with Esri and its founder Jack Dangermond — a former Society trustee — traces back to the 1980s, when Esri helped bring geographic information system (GIS) technology into the Society's Cartographic Division. The two organizations have since partnered on educational tooling and geospatial fieldwork support, and the Geoverse formalizes that history into a public-facing exhibit.

National Geographic MapMaker Kiosks

Before entering the theater, visitors can interact with customized kiosks based on National Geographic MapMaker, the Society's free online mapping tool, built with Esri and powered by the latest GIS software. The web-based 2D and 3D application lets users layer global data sets and answer geographic questions through interactive maps — and the museum kiosks adapt the same tool for in-gallery exploration.

America 250 Education Resources

To mark the United States' semiquincentennial, the Society will publish a series of National Geographic MapMaker resources in collaboration with Esri and National Geographic Learning. The materials will include guided lessons, free interactive student activities and educator guides aimed at middle and high school students, designed to let learners visualize American history through layered maps and geospatial data.

Why This Matters

The Geoverse arrives as the keystone immersive experience for a museum the Society describes as a "state-of-the-art public attraction" — a more than 100,000-square-foot space built around the work of its Explorers. For educators, the Learning Launchpad combination of MapMaker kiosks, Geoverse programming, and the upcoming America 250 lesson library positions the museum as a working classroom rather than a static exhibition. The full lineup, plus updates on the museum's June 26 public debut, is at natgeo.org/museum.