The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History hosted more than 2,000 attendees Saturday afternoon for Dinosaur Discovery Day, an event filled with dinosaur-themed activities, crafts and experiments led by museum educators and researchers. The museum organized the event in honor of Charles Darwin’s birthday and his contributions to evolutionary biology. The Michigan Education Trust (MET), a tuition planning and payment program for future college students, sponsored the event, allowing it to be free and accessible to all dinosaur enthusiasts.
According to Kira Berman, assistant director of education at the museum, though the Museum of Natural History has not hosted Dinosaur Discovery Day since 2017, it was an annual event for many years prior to that. Berman spoke with The Michigan Daily about Dinosaur Discovery Day’s many activities, including fossil digging and party hat making.
“We have had presentations from PaleoJoe, who is an avocational paleontologist and member of the Friends of the U-M Museum of Paleontology,” Berman said. “We had a presentation by Molly Range, a recent master’s student in the (Earth and Environmental Sciences Program), called Cretaceous Catastrophe about the tsunami that followed the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.”
Additionally, some of the museum’s student docents — U-M student museum educators — dressed up in dinosaur costumes to interact and spend time with younger attendees. LSA sophomore Vee Polderman, Natural History Museum student docent, told The Daily the event aims to accommodate both children and adults.
“Dinosaur Discovery Day is a chance for visitors to get to explore not only our dinosaur collections, but collections from other museums, talk to dinosaur professionals, meet our own dinosaur (fossils) and have some fun,” Polderman said. “There’s something for everybody.”
Ingrid Clover, assistant to the director of MET, told The Daily the MET was happy to partner with the museum for the event and to inspire children’s learning.
“We are all about supporting students and families as they prepare for college,” Clover said. “It’s great for us to be a part of this event where we can make contact with so many young families.”
With the opportunity for visitors to talk with paleontologists and participate in other educational activities at Dinosaur Day, Polderman said she hopes they will learn something new about dinosaurs and have fun while doing it.
“I hope that everybody gets to interact with dinosaurs in some way that they haven’t been able to before,” Polderman said. “I hope that they get a good scope of what our museum is all about and want to come back.”
Daily Staff Reporter Natalie Anderson can be reached at nateand@umich.edu.