Beetles, Bugs, & Butterflies

This artful approach to science motivates students to explore the amazing world of insects while learning about adaptations, physiology, and the role insects play in their daily lives. Colorful, take-home art projects creatively reinforce scientific concepts.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Miss Trudy’s Traveling Trunk Show (Interactive Educational Theater), Flight of the Butterflies (Planetarium Show), and Lin Emery: A Force of Nature (Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration).

Discovery Depot

This gallery stimulates a child’s imagination and encourages exploration and creative play. After a trip through the Children’s Playhouse, young chefs can enjoy nutrition oriented role play in the kitchen center while little engineers operate the wooden train. Puzzles, books, and games provide plenty of additional opportunities for learning and fun!

Flight of the Butterflies

Follow the monarchs’ perilous journey, join hundreds of millions of real butterflies in the remote mountain peaks of Mexico, and discover the compelling true story of an intrepid scientist’s 40-year search to find the monarchs’ secret hideaway in this beautiful scientific adventure.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Miss Trudy’s Traveling Trunk Show (Interactive Educational Theater) and Beetles, Bugs, & Butterflies (Class).

Miss Trudy’s Traveling Trunk Show

Join Miss Trudy, along with her puppet pals Sheldon the Sheepdog and Frederick the Mouse, on an imaginative, multidisciplinary exploration of the art and science of the seasons. Young students will enjoy songs, stories, and educational activities sprinkled with laughter and fun as they discover the exciting surprises awaiting them in Miss Trudy’s Trunk!

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Flight of the Butterflies (Planetarium Show) and Beetles, Bugs, & Butterflies (Class).

Winter/Spring Exhibition - Finding Vivian Maier Guided Tour

What are the odds of a camera-toting babysitter becoming a famous photographer? Vivian Maier (1926-2009) worked as a nanny for about forty years on Chicago’s North Shore, taking candid shots of people while on field trips with her young charges. Children playing tag, ladies admiring shop windows, and men waiting for the bus are among the approximately 100,000 photographs by Maier, which were shot in black and white and later color film. Maier became an instant celebrity posthumously when an anonymous trunk of undeveloped film came up at auction in 2009. The purchaser later posted the images on the Internet, catching the attention of art critics world-wide. Students will discuss the difference between traditional photography and digital imagery, learn what makes a successful composition, and talk about the art tradition of street photography.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Bright Light (Class) and Seeing! (Planetarium Show).