Boston Museum of Science Notables
The Boston Museum of Science has a lot of fun and interesting exhibits. Many of them are interactive which makes it fun to learn.
With all various exhibits to see, there are a few which you may miss. Here are a couple that I think are pretty interesting :
Dinosaur Coprolite
Have you ever touched Dinosaur Poop? Well you can at the Boston Museum of Science.
My six-year-old daughter always gets a kick out of the Dinosaur poop. We joke about it as we drive to the museum:
The "poop" is several million years old and is just a fossil remain. So touching it is just like touching any rock.
There is a sign next to fossilized remain to let you know what it is:
The photograph below is a magnified slice from the coprolite, fossilized dinosaur "poop". From the evidence, we can figure out the coprolite is from a plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic period. You can observe the cell structure from some of the indigested plant material.
Every time we go she feels that she has to take a picture of me touching the poop.
You can find the Dinosaur poop along the back wall in the Dinosaur Area on the first floor,
Giant Sequoia Tree
There is a large tree cross-section in the main exhibit area. This was once part of a 2000+-year-old tree.
There is a sign in front of the cross-section of the tree:
The cross-section is from a Giant Sequoia that was cut down in 1950 in Sequoia National Park, CA after being badly damaged. It was 240 feet tall and 2044 years old. The gap on the upper right was caused by a fire hundreds of years ago. Sequoias are well-adapted to withstand fire: they are covered by a thick, fibrous bark that has very little flammable resin. The tree survived and kept growing as the two sides curved around to protect the exposed wood.
Imagine all the winter storms and droughts that the tree had to live through over the past couple of centuries.
There are 9 points on the Giant Sequoia Tree that the museum highlights. You can press a button to see the year on the tree ring:
- 95 BCE - Tree started to grow
- 1 CE - The start of the Gregorian Calendar
- 476 - End of the Roman Empire
- 1000 - Leif Ericsson arrived in North America
- 1495 - Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper
- 1610 - Galileo discovered moons around Jupiter
- 1775 - Industrial Revolution begins in Britain
- 1833 - Giant Sequoia discovered by Europeans
- 1940 - Research into the technology to develop the Nuclear bomb.
The Giant Sequoia is one of Michael Bloomberg favorite exhibits at the museum. Last year he donated $50 million to the Boston Science Museum.
Locating the Giant Sequoia
It's not hard to miss the Giant Sequoia tree, its located in the main hall between the bathrooms and the back staircase.
Did you know: If you're interested in starting your own giant sequoia tree, you can purchase a starter kit in the museum gift shop. Just ask someone in the store if you need help finding it.