Curiosity Carts

In order to help increase the experience for our guests in learing, we have applied a more hands on approach, literally, this is stuff they can touch! The curiosity carts, one is about fur and the other is about trees, we have some more tenative ideas to come, like an ocean theme perhaps. In the fur cart we have furs from many different mammals We invite the patrons to observe with their eyes and hands to make observation about what the purpose for that fur is. mammals have developed fur to accomplish all sorts of things, keep them warm, camoflage, defense, and even cool the, down. With every cart we have an ipad that provides more opportunities to learn with interactive slide shows with videos and pictures. This allows the guest to learn at their level, if they just want to touch and guess which furs come from what animal or if they want to read inforamtion about each animal and their skin covering type and watch videos about it or they can egage with our knowledgeable educators for even more information.

We also have this available with a cart about trees. With this one we have many pieces of wood from different trees. Kids can touch these and count the rings to see how old these trees are, our oldest counted one is from a juniper that is 406  years old! We have leaves they can examine, seeds and animals that live in trees. On the ipad they can learn about tree types, how rings are formed, how an acorn grows and more!
 

It is our hope to utilize more learning like this in the museum. Our hope is to show you the wonders of the earth and hopefully as you learn more, you will care more and want to take part in being a good steward of this planet. Come check the curiosity carts out and learn something new!