Field Trip: North Museum of Nature and Science

 After being sick for a week, we were desperate to get out of the house, so we decided on a whim to visit the North Museum of Nature and Science, which I had never heard of until the night before we went. What a hidden gem! Lots of fun packed into a relatively small space! First, we visited the space exhibit, where the girls created space capsules and tested their structural integrity.

We then moved on to the interactive nature room, which was filled with lots of hands-on activities.

Pumpkin particularly enjoyed the digital microscope, and spent quite a bit of time there.

We also enjoyed the live animal room, which showcased a variety of small mammals and reptiles, including this very regal looking toad.

We then visited the paleontology exhibit and shallow seas exhibit. One of the really neat things about this museum is that everything was in English and Spanish, as you can see below. 

We went upstairs to the art gallery, which was really just office areas with art hung in the halls, but it was nice to see some beautiful paintings created by local artists.

Finally, we went downstairs to the basement, which we were told was the ornithology and geology room. We were so surprised to walk in and find the room filled wall-to-wall with antique cabinets, filled to bursting with all kinds of specimens!

All in all, it was a fun outing and definitely worth the spontaneous trip. The building doesn't look like much on the outside, but the space is utilized very well on the inside, packing lots of fun exhibits into a small space!