Dear Museum Supporter...

Autumn sheds a new light on the biodiversity in our backyards, revealing rich colours, new smells, and different active organisms. At the museum, we also shed a new light on our biodiversity programming. Join us this fall and winter for a new puppet show, tour, and Naturalist 101 activity. 

Our newest exhibit, Backyard Biodiversity, features illustrations and stories from books written in BC. Explore the diversity of stories and themes amongst a variety of hands-on activities, appropriate for visitors of all ages.

The museum is open daily up to and including Monday, October 13. After October 14, the museum will be closed on Mondays for research. What kind of research do we do? Follow us on instagram or twitter to reveal what happens behind-the-scenes on #museummonday.

See you soon!

Starting October 9, our Backyard Biodiversity program is getting an update. Join us for a new puppet show, Naturalist 101 activity, and tour.

There’s a crisis in the city! Bumblebee can’t find enough flowers to visit. Through the help of animal superheroes, we’ll discover something we can do to help bees out in the city. Uncover the mystery, weekends at our 10:30 a.m. puppet show: Bee my Superhero. 

How much do you know about birds of prey in BC? Develop your birding and naturalist skills through a series of activities designed to help you identify common birds. Discover the amazing world of hawks, eagles, owls, and falcons with our education team in Naturalist 101, daily at 12:30 p.m

Events

School and Teacher Programs 

Booking a school program is now easier than ever. Simply visit our website to book one of twenty different group experiences, including four new offerings for this school year:

• Earth Experience (E2): A combination visit to the Pacific Museum of Earth for students of all grades.
• Teacher Tours: Specifically for groups of educators to explore how to use the museum in their lessons.
• Museum Tour with a Curator: Learn about a collection in-depth with a museum curator.
• Collections Experience: Want to get behind the scenes? Request an experience in your favourite collection!

Join our Professional Development day on Friday, October 24, to learn about the programs the museum offers, and how to use the museum for your teaching. Learn more and register to attend. 

Behind the Scenes 

This month we are featuring our Work-Learn students in the Herbarium - Saskia Wolsak and Jasmine Lai. 

After working here as a staff member in 2013, I am thrilled to be back at the herbarium as a work-learn student. I particularly appreciate the quiet, focused environment, surrounded by plants, knowledge, and interesting people. Working at the herbarium is like helping to keep a great ship sailing - a ship that has been sailing for almost a hundred years. The tasks are varied, and there is always something to do, from pulling specimens, to making images, to helping researchers navigate the collections. It's a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of a great system of learning such as this, and to contribute to the growth and longevity of this valuable resource in whatever way I can.

Jasmine Lai

Perhaps it's the floral name? I naturally gravitated towards working at the Herbarium. Over the course of the summer I handled the magnolia collection. Most of the time our work is hidden behind cabinets or thick freezer doors, never seeing the light of day. Behind  the secretive "staff do not enter doors" we mount, fix, short, categorize and database all the donated or collected plant specimens. I love meeting and working with all the amazing people who maintain this collection. There is always something new to learn everyday I come into work.

Window into the Collection

You've probably been noticing mushrooms popping up now that the rain has begun. We've got a few mushrooms here at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum - 26,771 to be exact. Some of our mushrooms are new species records for BC (meaning they have never been seen here before) while others are new to science (they have never been seen anywhere before). Mushrooms are important because they recycle plants after they die and transform them into rich soil. If not for mushrooms and fungi, the Earth would be buried in several feet of debris and life on the planet would soon disappear. 

Learn more about mushrooms on our Mushroom Walk on Saturday, November 1st and read our blog post about the most recent addition to the mushroom collection.