March 16th - 31st 2019 | Activities at 12pm daily

Join us this Spring Break for a different hands-on activity every day, brought to you by volunteers, staff, curators, and special guests!

Meet new friends while exploring different aspects of the biodiversity around us. From identifying incredible insects, to art, games, crafts, and hands-on activities, you’ll be a biodiversity pro in no time.

Learn more about the language of the forest at Talkative Trees, meet some of the museum's water-dwelling neighbours at our Pond Poke and find out just why animals evolved to be so diverse at Adaptation Exploration!

Check out our website for our full schedule of events!

All activities are open to all ages and are included with membership or admission on a drop-in basis, unless otherwise noted. Children under the age of 13 must have adult supervision in the museum at all times.

Researchers Revealed is a digital exhibition from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum exploring new technologies that researchers are using to study the natural world. Following scientists from the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, we travel from oceans to deserts and far-off jungles, uncovering the answers to some of our most pressing questions about life on Earth.

In Eyes in the Wild, producer Philippe Roberge and wildlife ecologist Cole Burton lift the lid on the secrets of camera traps and animal selfies in Yellowstone National Park.

Share Eyes in the Wild, and a behind the scenes gallery of how the documentary was made, with your class!

In our first Researchers Revealed, the team went In Search of Salmon in B.C.'s Juan de Fuca Strait, to better understand why southern resident killer whale populations are struggling.

... well, look at them!

Treehoppers are peculiar insects that wear a ‘helmet’ on top of their bodies. This ‘helmet’ is actually a modification of their thorax, and is called the pronotum. The shape of the pronotum varies from species to species in a bewildering diversity of shapes, some of which can be so bizarre they border on the realm of science fiction.

Treehoppers also present some extraordinary behaviours, including species hiring ants as bodyguards, devoted mothers caring for their babies, and males serenading females during courtship. Over 3500 treehopper species have been described, most of which occur in tropical America, but there are even a few species here in Vancouver.

This talk will address the ecological challenges treehoppers face in their natural habitats, as well as how their pronotum and behaviour allowed them to spread from the lush Amazonian jungle up to the snow limit in the high Andes.

Luis Camacho is an Ecuadorian naturalist doing his PhD at UBC Zoology. He is interested in insect behaviour and natural history, particularly treehoppers. He carries out research in his home country, where he studies treehoppers in museum collections and in their natural habitats.

Let us know on Facebook if you'll be joining us for this exciting talk!

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The Beaty Biodiversity Museum strives to inspire an understanding of biodiversity, its origins, and importance to humans through collections-based research, education and outreach. As Vancouver’s natural history museum, we work to promote a greater sense of collective responsibility for the biodiversity of British Columbia, Canada, and the world. The unique combination of world-class research, paired with beautiful, compelling exhibits, strives to make the research conducted at UBC more accessible to the public.