Fernbank Musuem of Natural History

Over the weekend, my family and I had the opportunity to visit the Fernbank Musuem of Natural History in Atlanta, GA. (special Thank You to Mommy Octopus for hosting a great giveaway)

My kids really enjoy visiting museums, so we didn't tell them. We wanted to surprise them with a mini adventure. Currently, Fernbank is hosting an exhibit called Geckos! From the Fernbank website, Geckos: Tails to Toepads is a traveling exhibition that introduces visitors to the remarkable diversity of these lizards with bold backlit graphics, engaging interactives and living examples from around the world. Visitors can experience gecko night vision, listen to gecko voices, learn unusual facts from gecko experts, try to spot camouflaged geckos, and build a custom gecko for various environments. The exhibition also presents cutting-edge science, from the race to catalog and classify gecko diversity to unraveling the mysteries of how geckos are such masters of adhesion.

My kids loved this! Each gecko enclosure had a certain number of geckos. It was really hard to find all of them. There was one species that resembled a dead leaf. I don't think we ever found all of those!












If you have a dinosaur lover, then they would certainly enjoy Gaints of the Mesozoic. The permanent exhibition Giants of the Mesozoic, filling the Museum’s Great Hall. This exhibition recreates life in the badlands of Patagonia, Argentina, where the largest dinosaurs in the world were unearthed.




We spent about an hour in the Sensing Nature exhibit. The exhibit has interactive displays that demonstrate how our senses interrupt visual and audial cues, which can sometimes lead to false perceptions. My kids loved the bubble station. It took a little work to blow a giant bubble.



We also had the opportunity to view the IMAX presentation of BUGS! A Rainforest Adventure. It was stunningly beautiful! The movie follows the lifecycle of a butterfly in the Amazon Rainforest. It does end on a downer, and ironically is presented by Terminex. My husband and I got kind of tickled when we saw that.

This is a great museum for a day trip. It's not very large, but is beautiful and has some very interesting exhibits. Geckos will be at Fernbank until September 6th,2010.