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What do dinosaur bones, Native Americans, and a giant sloth all have in common? Well,
believe it or not, you can find all three at the Museum of Natural History in Macbride
Hall. I talk to people that have lived in Iowa City
their whole life and they meet me somewhere and then they say, 'really, I didn't know
we had a natural history museum, how long has it been there?' and I get to say 'well,
actually, since 1858 in the same spot, you know, it's not like we just showed up there.
In addition to featuring a wide array of exhibits free and open to the public, the museum provides
jobs for roughly ten students and up to 25 volunteer student workers a semester. One
of those workers is UI junior Nathan Kooker. As a English and philosophy major, I don't
really have many opportunities to engage with the sciences, and so I cherish the fact that
here at the museum I can get my hands on things and learn, learn about the natural world and
history and stuff. For anyone who hadn't been to the museum,
I would encourage them to get over here and check it out. I mean, we have hundreds of
thousands of artifacts and specimens that you can see from all over the world in our
three galleries. It's truly an individual experience, a unique
experience to be here in Iowa City and to be able to see things like a whale. Yeah,
this is a real polar bear. We get that question all the time.
The museum also hosts a multitude of events each year, such as the Creepy Campus Crawl,
which occurs around Halloween. It's geared at families with, I would say,
elementary-aged students, but we have activities for really young kids. We have a lot of college
students that come just to kind of check it out. It's really fun because all of the visitors
(the kids) come in costume. We're all in costume, so it is like a giant trick or treating party.
It's so invigorating and exciting to watch these kids learn because what we have is truly
interesting content and to share that excitement in natural history is...it's a joy.