Four Steps to Making a Geology Museum

Many of you know that we used to have a wonderful geology museum, called the Geology Learning Center. But the owner of the building decided to sell the space, so that it could be developed into condos. So we had to close it down! But that is a whole other story.

Creating and maintaining museums is quite an undertaking. But recently a family surprised us when they sent us pictures of their kids’ new museum …in their basement! In particular, it seems that they had ordered a fossil kit from us, and the kids decided that the appropriate thing to do was to create their own museum in their basement, and so they did!

We just love their enthusiasm, and creativity that sparked this endeavor. As a matter of fact, they thought of everything down to treats to eat! This got us to thinking about how others might want to try something like this. So this blog is devoted to cheering you on with some ideas that might be fun for you to try.

Let’s Make a Geology Museum!

First, let’s get a location: you could use an area in your basement, or perhaps your kids have some bookshelf space in their bedrooms. As an illustration, one time we had a fluorescent display set up in our garage!

Second, you will need some shelves. Cinder blocks are just fine with some 2×4’s. Decorated shoe boxes can work as well as egg cartons work well for categorization.

Third, think about types of museums. This family did a fossil museum. Here are some ideas for what you could display or offer:

Rocks
Minerals
Fossils
Dinosaurs types
Live exhibits – an earthworm farm, maybe?
Information “boards”
Hands-on activities. For instance, you might want to get a magnifying glass, one that you won’t mind if it gets banged around a bit. There are some nice magnifying glasses in the market that have plastic housing for them.
Games – “Can you identify this rock?” or, “What kind of dinosaur is this?” and so on.

To help you with classification, we have some excellent books: Rock Identification Field Guide, Fossil Identification Field Guide, and Mineral Identification Made Easy.

BUY ROCK IDENTIFICATION FIELD GUIDE!

BUY FOSSIL IDENTIFICATION FIELD GUIDE!

BUY Mineral Identification Made Easy!

Finally, every museum needs some treats that reflect their museum. How about dinosaur eggs, candy rocks, sedimentary sandwiches, you get the drift!