Eclectic Em: Natural History Muesum at the University of Utah

My blog posts have been falling behind because I keep doing too many fun things and don't have enough time to blog about them. I'll try to get caught up before the next set of fun things starts happening.

On Wednesday, July 25 Doug and I went to the Natural History Museum at the University of Utah.

It's new and BIG!

When I was a kid I went on a few field trips to the old museum on Presidents circle. It was in a really old building and didn't have enough space. Then, when I was a student at the U, I visited the museum a few times with friends. I was a little hesitant about going to the new museum because I thought that all my memories of the old one would be gone. But they weren't!

Al, the Allosaurus, who asks your for money

I still fit in the dinosaur footprint

They transferred Al the Allosaurus and the dinosaur footprint from the old museum. They may seem like silly things, but I was really glad they kept them. They also still have the windows to the room where they prepare dinosaur bones. We got to watch two guys working on taking some bones out of plaster.

A prehistoric horse fossil

They have these really neat areas where the floor is made of glass and it looks like a dinosaur dig underneath.

You could walk over this fossil

This shows the bones being jumbled up, like in at a real dig site

I still like the big dinosaur bones the most. It's amazing to think of all those giant creatures wandering around where we still walk today.

A mamoth, sabertooth tiger, and ox type thing.

Doug looks like he could be a paleontologist.

The roof of the museum is covered in solar panels. I wanted to ask if they were enough to power the whole museum without needing outside electricity but I didn't ever find anyone who would have known the answer. After further research I found that the solar panels provide over 25% of the energy needed to power the museum. You can learn more about the building's sustainability by clicking here.

Solar panels on the roof and the beautiful Wasatch mountains

A lot of the museum is dedicated to housing collections. There are rows and rows of shelves with fossils and other important items. It would be fun to work there and have access to everything.