Conservation Kids vs. Toxic Waste Part 1: Reduce

Watch part 1 (Reduce) of "The Conservation Kids vs. Toxic Waste" ... 

Part 2 will be posted on Friday, May 30th and part 3 will be posted on Friday, June 6th.

We are so excited to announce that the Bean Life Science Museum is opening on Saturday, June 7th. We are working frantically to finish installing all of our new and exciting exhibits. See this blogpost for more details about our new exhibits.

Join us that day (Saturday, June 7th) from 10AM to 5PM for our grand re-opening event or on the following Monday, June 9th for a SPECIAL FAMILY NIGHT. 

We will have the following activities planned for both events:

• Crafts for kids - decorate your own reusable shopping bag!

• Take a photo with Superheros "Katy & Ken, the Conservation Kids"

• Live Animal Shows (1 & 3 PM on Saturday, 6:30 & 7:30 PM on Monday)

• T-shirt give-away - Post a picture to Facebook or Instagram that shows how you "Protect Your Planet!" You might be recycling, cleaning up your local park, using reusable grocery bags... get creative! Tag the museum (@beanmuseum on Instagram) and you will be able to pick up your free t-shirt at the opening event!!! Use the hashtag #conservationcontest

As always, you can request an outreach live animal show on our website. We are now also accepting requests for in-house live animal shows (after June 9th). We will still offer one free outreach on Monday nights for FHE (see website for details and restrictions) and our webcast live animal shows.

We are also offering Wildlife Adventures this summer for kids ages 6-12 with the following fun field trips:

• Week 1            June 17 and 19          WATER WILDLIFE (Provo River & Utah Lake)
• Week 2            June 24 and 26          ROCK ON (Stewart Falls or Cascade Springs)
• Week 3            July 8 and 10             THE BEE'S KNEES (Local Beekeeper)
• Week 4            July 15 and 17           REPTILE RETREAT (Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life)
• Week 5            July 29 and Aug 1     FEATHERED FRIENDS (Tracy Aviary)
• Week 6            Aug 5 and 7               CAVE CRAWLERS (Timpanogos Cave)

We hope to see you soon!

Bean Life Science Museum NEW EXHIBIT HIGHLIGHTS

Our Living Planet (East center atrium: main floor)
This exhibit looks at the unique characteristics of planet Earth and how those characteristics sustain life on earth. It features the world’s largest, most accurate, fiberglass globe with the most current NASA Satellite images.





 Protect Your Planet (West center atrium)
This exhibit includes the full mount elephant that previous visitors will remember fondly. It also features threatened, endangered, and extinct life forms and some of the causes for their struggle to survive.

 Our Sacred Stewardship (North hallway)
This exhibit teaches the inspired doctrine that defines our stewardship responsibilities related to the care and keeping of the earth and its sacred resources. It will feature a video based on interviews with faculty members from across campus explaining and testifying about why earth stewardship is so vitally important.

 Life on Top: Apex Predators (New east atrium: upstairs)
This exhibit features spectacular animal scenes gifted to the museum by George Brimhall. Visitors will explore the importance and characteristics of predators as they observe scenes displaying interactions between predators and their prey.


 Life Submerged: Marine & Freshwater (West wall of west center atrium)
This exhibit depicts both freshwater and marine ecosystems, highlighting a coral reef and a deep-sea thermal vent as well as a cross section through a river exploring “what you see” and “ what you don’t see”

 Connections (North wall of west center atrium)
This 2-dimensional exhibit focuses on basic, biological concepts that demonstrate how everything on our planet is connected. This exhibit is interactive with QR codes and will be updated regularly with new and exciting examples of life connections.

 Because of Plants (South wall of west center atrium)
This 2-dimensional exhibit highlights the many critical roles plants play in supporting life on earth.  From the food we eat to the air we breathe!

 Whooo Lives Here? (West side alcove)
This new toddler play area will teach the children about animal homes. We will have a talking owl, a bear cave, and a tree/nest/slide complex.

Fred & Sue Morris Bird Gallery (West Center Gallery)
This collection features the waterfowl and pheasants of the world, donated by Fred and Sue Morris and includes more than 100 different kinds of birds.  This exhibit will highlight some of the interesting adaptations seen in the world of birds.

  Boyd K. Packer Gallery (East Center Gallery)
This exhibit honors President Boyd K. Packer and features his wildlife art including animal carvings and paintings.

Our New Spaces: The Packer Gallery

The Packer Gallery will feature wood carvings and paintings created by President Boyd K. Packer. This artwork represents a lifetime of artistic production by President Packer. At one time these works were displayed at the church history museum and have been stored there in the vaults until this time.

President Packer's artistic inspiration was a desire to beautify his surroundings. At a young age he was fascinated by wildlife and birds. His only art training was a few art classes in high school. Later in life he continued to ask questions about various techniques from artistic friends.

The room in which his artwork will be displayed has been designed to make you feel as if you are sitting in President Packer's home. The beautiful pinewood work is very similar to that of the Packer home.

President Packer has maintained a long term relationship with the museum. For years he would borrow specimens from ornithologist Clayton White to aid in his artistic inspiration. Recently, a donor gave money to the university in honor of President Packer. It was decided that the most appropriate place to place his artwork was at the Bean Life Science Museum on permanent display.

Ken Packer, exhibits designer here at the Bean Museum, hopes people will be interested in seeing nature through President Packer's eyes. It is President Packer's love of nature that helped him understand the creation of the earth and that Jesus Christ is the creator of the world. He hopes people can come away appreciating the world, be inspired to create themselves, and have a feeling that we have a stewardship for the earth.This feeling of stewardship is illustrated by the scripture chosen to go over the north hallway entrance.

Job 12:7 "But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee"

Our new spaces part 1

The Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum at Brigham Young University is a dynamic repository and trustee for a remarkable group of biological collections.  These collections are used to celebrate the role of Jesus Christ as Creator, while enhancing student learning and mentoring and promoting faculty teaching and research.  They also serve as a unique venue for inviting the public and scientific community to explore and contemplate intricate biological relationships and processes. Entry to the museum has been free since the museum opened on March 28, 1978.

We’ve been waiting for this expansion for almost 10 years. When the museum opened in 1978, it held 1,329,000 total specimens. Today the museum holds over 2,800,000 specimens. We were definitely feeling some growing pains! With our new expansion, we will have increased our size by 32,400 square feet.

The main entrance to the museum will now be on the east side of the building.

The new addition is covered with beautiful native sandstone from a quarry in Wasatch County.

The east side addition to the museum was completely funded by donor money. Thank you to our generous donors!

Here is the original floor plan of the main floor prior to construction. A few details have changed, but it is overall what you can expect to see.

Please look out for our blog post next month where we will be going over the details of our new interior!

Big Changes at the Bean

Things are changing pretty quickly around here at the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum! It's quite the thrill to see the new museum coming together... and it looks AMAZING. You've been waiting patiently, so here is a sneak peek into the museum's new look!

The new entryway to our exhibits.

These peacocks are stunning in our new gallery space.

Dozens of new mounts!

As amazing as all of these new developments are, we are grateful that some things will never change here at the Bean Museum. 

Shasta the Liger is here to stay. (Of course!) Just look at that face!

Our drinking fountains are still the best drinking fountains this side of the Mississippi. I mean, look at 'em. They're glowing. Practically celestial.

This lion still hasn't caught his antelope. Commitment issues.

And this hippo still hasn't shaved.... or brushed his teeth.... Ever.

Stay tuned on the Bean Blog and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter - @beanmuseum!

Lytle Preserve - Museum Employee Retreat

A couple of weeks ago museum employees took a break from all the moving and construction and spent 2 days down at the Lytle Preserve in Washington County, Utah. Recently the museum oversaw the construction of a new bunkhouse which has overnight accommodations for 24 people. This bunkhouse is available to BYU faculty and students primarily for teaching and research purposes.

Museum employees spent time talking about the new exhibits we will be installing now that the construction of the addition and remodel is complete. We also discussed and made preliminary plans for our opening events. The museum does not have an opening date but we anticipate we will open sometime in the spring of 2014. Keep checking our website for more details as the time gets closer.

The weather was beautiful and the sunsets were spectacular. We had visitors from the Nature Conservancy on Thursday and we invited Merrill Webb, Utah's expert bird watcher, to join us Thursday night and Friday morning for "owling" and a bird walk. Everyone enjoyed the ripe pomegranate orchards. Shawn Clark (Entomology Collections Manager) and Robert Johnson (Herbarium Manager) spent time collecting insects and plants for the museum's collections.

Here is a list of all the birds we saw:
Green-winged Teal, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Sharp-shinned Hawk, White-winged Dove, Northern Flicker, American Kestrel, Black Phoebe, Bewick's Wren, American Robin, European Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Spotted Towhee, Brewer's Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-winged Blackbird, House Finch (17 total species, October 25, 2013)