Bell Museum of Natural History facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Bell Museum

The Bell Museum in 2018
Established	1872 (1872)
Location	2088 Larpenteur Ave W, Falcon Heights, MN 55113 on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota
Type	Natural History of Minnesota
Owner	University of Minnesota

The Bell Museum is a cool place to learn about nature and science! It used to be called the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History. You can find it on the University of Minnesota's Saint Paul campus.

The museum moved to its current spot in 2018. Inside, you'll see amazing dioramas that show animals from Minnesota and around the world in their natural homes. The museum also has a special digital Planetarium called the Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium. It's part of the university's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The old museum building in Minneapolis closed in January 2017.

Museum History

The Bell Museum started way back in 1872. The state of Minnesota wanted a place to collect and show off the amazing plants and animals found here. This was for scientists to study, for teachers to use, and for everyone to enjoy and learn from. The University of Minnesota is in charge of the museum.

The first museum was just one room on the university's Minneapolis campus. Later, a doctor and bird expert named Thomas Sadler Roberts helped make it bigger. His friend, James Ford Bell, gave a lot of money ($150,000) to build a new place for nature dioramas. Bell really wanted a diorama of gray wolves in their natural environment. He hoped it would help protect them, because in the 1930s, people were paid to hunt wolves.

More money came from donations and the government. The James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History opened in 1940. It was expanded in the 1960s and 1970s. But by the 1980s, the building had problems like leaks and mold. These issues put the valuable collections and dioramas at risk.

New Building Details

It took ten years of planning to get a new building! In 2014, the Minnesota government agreed to help pay for it. The university could borrow $51.5 million for the project. The state would help pay back this money over 25 years.

Construction on the new museum started on Earth Day, April 22, 2016. The company Perkins and Will designed the new Bell Museum building. It's located on the Saint Paul campus at 2088 Larpenteur Ave W, Falcon Heights, MN. The new museum has cool additions like an outdoor learning area, its own parking lot, and new exhibit spaces. The total cost for the new building and moving everything was about $64.2 million.

Amazing Collections

The Bell Museum has over 4 million specimens! These are like scientific treasures that help people research and learn. They have been used for teaching since the museum began in 1872.

In 2016, the museum launched the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas. This is an online tool where you can search through tons of data. It has information and images of birds, mammals, fish, plants, and fungi from the Bell Museum. This helps scientists study nature and plan for protecting it. The database has over 400,000 scientific records and many high-quality images.

Amphibian and Reptile Collection This collection has many different Amphibians and Reptiles. It focuses a lot on animals from the upper Midwest.

Bird Collection Most of the Bird Collection specimens are from the upper Midwest, especially Minnesota. The Bell Museum has collections for both research and teaching.

Fish Collection The Fish Collection includes specimens from the Menage expedition to the Philippines in the 1890s. It also has fish from Hawaii collected in the early 1900s. Plus, there are many other specimens from all over the United States.

Fungi Collection About 10% of the Fungi Collection is fungi from Minnesota. The rest of the collection comes from all over the world.

Lichen Collection The Lichen Collection is one of the biggest lichen collections in the United States. It's also one of the few that is fully digitalized. It holds lichens from around the world.

Invertebrate Collection The Mollusks and Crustaceans Invertebrate Collection has freshwater mollusks found in Minnesota. This invertebrate collection also includes an old collection of Indo-Pacific mollusks from the Minneapolis Library.

A diorama in the Mammal Collection

Mammal Collection Most of the Mammal Collection includes dry skin and skull preparations. But the Bell also has many full skeletons. They are also growing their collection of fluid-preserved specimens.

Vascular Plant Collection The Vascular Plant Collection has samples of plant parts like leaves, cones, fruits, and seeds.

Exciting Exhibits

The following descriptions are about exhibits that were in the museum's old location on 10 Church St.

Dioramas The Bell Museum's dioramas were on two floors of the old Minneapolis building. They showed Minnesota's different habitats. You could see the birds, animals, plants, and insects that live there. There were moose, elk, bear, beavers, cranes, fish, and more! The dioramas were a great way to learn animal facts. You could also observe animal behavior and see how species survive. These dioramas were first created between the 1920s and 1940s.

A wildlife artist named Francis Lee Jaques painted the backgrounds for many of the large and medium-sized dioramas.

Elk diorama, set at Inspiration Peak northwest of Alexandria, Minnesota

Touch and See Room The Touch and See Room was built in 1968. Richard Barthelemy, who worked in public education, noticed visitors wanted to touch things. Usually, museum specimens are behind glass. So, Barthelemy started letting groups touch bones, furs, and feathers. He worked with Dr. Roger Johnson from the University of Minnesota. Together, they created hands-on programs. Soon after the Touch and See Room opened, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. visited. They then created their own discovery room!

Today, the Touch and See Room still has bones, furs, and feathers. But it also has live animals like snakes, frogs, geckos, cockroaches, and tarantulas!

Rainforest Gallery "Under the Fig Leaf" is a living rainforest exhibit. It's also an active research project. The museum's Curator of Plants, Professor George Weiblen, manages it. Many of the plants grew from seeds Weiblen collected in tropical forests. These include places like Papua New Guinea. Visitors can see the mini rainforest from the ground and from above. You can also learn about related research from the University of Minnesota.

ExploraDome The museum's old film room was changed into a half-dome planetarium theater. Museum staff take audiences on a virtual journey. You can travel from Earth's surface to the edge of the known universe! It's a small theater, holding up to 15 people per show. All presentations are given live by a planetarium educator. This allows for questions and interaction with the audience.

Geodome The museum has an inflatable geodome. This is like a traveling version of the ExploraDome. It can be brought to schools and other places across the state. It was the first geodome theater in Minnesota! It's mainly used for educational visits. The geodome also goes to the Minnesota State Fair every year for STEM Day.

Traveling Exhibits The Bell Museum of Natural History also creates exhibits that travel to other places. These exhibitions cover many different topics. The Bell wants to help people appreciate our natural world more. They also want to help people understand today's environmental issues. Many exhibits are for small or medium-sized spaces. But the Bell's exhibits have traveled to museums of all sizes. They have even gone to places across the United States and Canada. Some exhibits need special setup. Others are self-supporting, light, and easy to put together. These are great for museums, visitor centers, schools, and libraries.

Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium

The Minnesota Planetarium Society (MNPS) used to promote astronomy education. They ran the Minnesota Planetarium from 1960 until it closed in 2002. When the Minneapolis Central Library was torn down in 2002, the old planetarium closed. The plan was to rebuild it with the new library.

However, in September 2011, the Planetarium Society joined forces with the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History. The new Bell Museum building has a digital planetarium. It uses a special INSIGHT Dual Laser 4K projection system. This makes for an amazing viewing experience!

The planetarium is named after Whitney MacMillan and his wife, Elizabeth.

Fun Programs

The museum offers many programs and events for different age groups. These include science labs, summer camps, and "Spotlight Science." They also have "Sensory Friendly Saturdays," "After Hours" events, and "Star Parties." These programs help spark interest and appreciation for science, technology, art, engineering, and math (STEM).

Admission (beginning June 14, 2023)