Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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area where visitors can create original artwork to take home. The museum store is filled
with educational and multicultural topics, science to ys, videos, music, and art supplies.
Navy Pier, 700 E. Grand Ave.
&
312/527-1000.
www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org. Admission $9 adults
and children, $8 seniors. Free admission the first Mon of every month for ages 15 and under; free admis-
sion for all Thurs 5-8pm. Sun-Wed and Fri 10am-5pm; Thurs and Sat 10am-8pm. Subway/El: Red Line to
Grand/State; transfer to city bus or Navy Pier's free trolley bus. Bus: 29, 56, 65, or 66.
The F ield Museum of Na tural Histor y
All ages.
Kids lo ve the F ield
Museum for its wide-open spaces—we're talking 9 acres of floor space—giant dinos, and
hands-on exhibits. Little ones can indulge their inner I ndiana Jones b y exploring the
shadowy tunnels of an Egyptian tomb or feeling the thrill of a passage acr oss the Pacific
Ocean in an outrigger canoe. O r explore the African continent b y visiting a royal Cam-
eroon palace, witnessing sav anna wildlife, and trav eling across the S ahara and back to
Nigeria. Gleaming gems, giant stuffed elephants, mummies, and N ative American ar ti-
facts will hav e your kids enthralled. Scor es of permanent and temporar y exhibitions—
some interactiv e, but most r equiring the old-fashioned skills of obser vation and
imagination—can boggle the mind with their sheer quantity. Some of the diorama-type
exhibits have gotten musty over time, but many others have been completely overhauled,
with plenty of activities to keep kids inter ested.
Start out in the grand
Stanley Field Hall
(where you enter from either the nor th or
the south end). S tanding proudly at the nor th side is the largest, most complete
Tyran-
nosaurus rex
fossil ever unearthed. Named
“Sue”
for the paleontologist who found
the dinosaur in 1990 in South Dakota, the specimen was acquired by the museum for a
cool $8.4 million follo wing a high-stakes bidding war . The real skull is so heavy that a
lighter copy had to be mounted on the skeleton; the actual one is on display nearb y.
Families should head do wnstairs for two of the most popular kid-friendly exhibits.
The pieces on display in
Inside Ancient Egypt
were brought to the museum in the
early 1900s, after r esearchers in Saqqara, Egypt, excavated two of the original chambers
from the tomb of Unis-ankh, son of the Fifth Dynasty ruler Pharaoh Unis. This
mastaba
(tomb) of U nis-ankh no w forms the cor e of a spellbinding exhibit that r ealistically
depicts scenes fr om Egyptian funeral, r eligious, and other social practices. Visitors can
explore aspects of the day-to-day world of ancient E gypt, viewing 23 actual mummies
and realistic burial scenes, a living marsh environment and canal works, the ancient royal
barge, a religious shrine, and a reproduction of a typical marketplace of the period. Many
of the exhibits allo w hands-on interaction, and ther e are special activities for kids, such
as making parchment from living papyrus plants.
Next to the E gypt exhibit y ou'll find
Underground A dventure,
a “ total immersion
environment” populated by giant robotic earwigs, centipedes, wolf spiders, and other sub-
terranean critters. The D isneyesque exhibit is a big hit with kids, but—anno yingly—
requires an extra admission charge ($7 on top of regular admission for adults, $3 for kids).
While y ou're do wnstairs, plug a dollar bill into one of the old-fashioned wax-molding
6
machines and watch as y our very own red
T. r e x
or green brontosaurus is shaped in fr ont
of your eyes. Kids get a thrill out of taking home their v ery own Field Museum dino.
The “peoples of the world ” exhibits ar e not only mind-opening, but also gr eat fun.
Traveling the Pacific
is hidden up on the second floor , but it's definitely worth a stop.
Hundreds of artifacts from the museum's oceanic collection re-create scenes of island life
in the South Pacific. (There's even a full-scale model of a M aori meetinghouse.)
Africa,
an assemblage of African artifacts and provocative, interactive multimedia presentations,
takes viewers to Senegal, to a Cameroon palace, to the savanna and its wildlife, and on a
