Revisiting natural history museums

They aren’t just for kids.
Vienna’s Museum of Natural History. Photo by Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman / Editor-in-Chief

Spending most of my winter break in Vienna, I made sure to visit not only art museums but also the local natural history museum. It was a surprisingly wonderful experience, one that I had begun to lose touch with. 

Throughout my childhood, my mom brought me to as many history and science museums as she possibly could. Fine arts museums were out of the question for her because my brother and I were very active children. Thus, we spent a lot of time at interactive exhibits, learning about the Earth’s crust or Leonardo da Vinci’s helicopter design.

As I got past middle school, I began visiting art exhibitions mostly. I was convinced I’d already learned everything I could, having visited many natural history museums while growing up. 

However, spending a day at the Museum of Natural History of Vienna has convinced me otherwise. Already knowing concepts such as crystalline structures or the rough timeline of modern humanity spreading through the planet allowed me to concentrate on really reading every small info plaque accompanying the exhibits. Many of the things I saw and learned about might not have interested my nine-year-old self, but I was surprised by how many small bits of information and fun facts I was able to gather. 

During my visit, I completely lost track of time and almost had no time for the museum’s second floor.

The oldest salt mine in the world? Got it. Lombard’s migration into northern Italy? Got it. Weird recreations of what we think prehistoric creatures looked like? You bet. I’ve got it all now.

And, of course, I had to visit one of the rare gems of the museum: the Venus of Willendorf. The 30,000-year-old statuette is certainly worth seeing. I recommend that anyone with a day to spare in Vienna stop by the Museum of Natural History and check out this piece of European prehistory.

Revisiting natural history museums is a wonderful experience for people who study outside the wide range of natural sciences yet still wonder about the world and want to refresh their knowledge. 

The biggest advantage of going to science museums as an adult is being able to choose which sections interest you enough to spend hours wandering in and which you’d like to skip entirely. Not having any time restrictions allowed this magical day to happen.

One thing I know for sure — when I get back to Montreal, I will be revisiting some museums that aren’t just art galleries, like Redpath, Pointe a Calliere, and the Montreal Aviation Museum

Not enough people wonder about how brief humanity’s history really is and the captivating millions of years that passed before we existed. Knowing more about this subject can both highlight how special humanity’s existence is and also show us how insignificant our presence is to the planet we call home.

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