MUSEUM ADVENTURES brings bilingual English/Spanish traveling exhibits to rural communities across Oregon with fun activities for the whole family.
These exciting new educational resources are available to libraries and other community organizations in rural locations. Each traveling Museum Adventures exhibit features a set of exhibit stations, hands-on activities, and a programming toolkit—all you need to host four weeks of fun, interactive programs.
Subscribe to our digital Oregon Libraries Newsletter
Two Exciting Adventures
The Museum Adventures program includes two exhibits: Oregon's Dino-Story, launched June 2022, and Native Innovation launching in 2023. Each theme has two traveling exhibit copies.
![]()
| ![]()
|
Oregon's Dino-Story | Native InnovationAvailable starting Fall 2023 |
Uncover the mystery of Oregon’s dinosaur history! Join us for this dino-mite adventure and explore the clues that fossils reveal about Oregon during the Age of Dinosaurs. Program participants discover: | Celebrate engineering innovations designed and used by First Nations in Oregon. This exhibit will explore how Native Americans have used knowledge, creativity, and ingenuity to solve problems for thousands of years, and continue to do so today. Participants will be invited to try their own hand at engineering, while learning from examples of traditional Indigenous technologies related to housing, travel, tools, recreation, resource management, and more. |
The Museum Adventures exhibit will spend approximately four weeks at your location and can be used as the basis for a variety of fun, educational community programming. All public-facing materials are bilingual English/Spanish—such as the exhibit stations, family handouts, and publicity resources.
Here is what’s included with each traveling exhibit:
Exhibit Stations:
A set of themed stations that can be displayed in public areas for youth and families to explore. The stations include touchable objects and interactive activities that do not require electricity, allowing the exhibit to be used in a variety of locations, including off-site or outside events. The full exhibit can fit onto three tables and some adjacent floor space. The exhibit stations are modular, meaning that they can be displayed all together or the individual stations can be set up in different areas of a building or put out at different times.
Oregon’s Dino-Story exhibit includes five tabletop stations, a free-standing map station, a simulated fossil dig pit that can be displayed on a shipping crate or table, dinosaur footprints on the floor, and some inflatable dinosaurs to set the stage for fun.
Check out the exhibit set up at Sutherlin Library.
Programming Toolkit:
A comprehensive Exhibit and Program Guide supports the use of the exhibit and implementation of related programming. The Programming Toolkit includes this guide, as well as the resources and materials for a variety of themed programs and events, such as a family STEM event, an early childhood story hour, youth workshops, hands-on activities for all ages, and take-home activity kits. Specialized props and reusable supplies are provided. This does not include basic supplies such as scissors, crayons, and tape or simple consumables, such as paper, craft sticks, yarn, etc.
The Exhibit and Program Guide will be provided as a set of shared digital resources once a scheduled exhibit check out date is confirmed. A hard copy notebook version of the Exhibit and Program Guide will also travel with the exhibit.
Publicity Resources:
The Oregon's Dino-Story Publicity Resources page provides ready-to-use bilingual English/Spanish materials for getting the word out about the exhibit and related programs. Examples include:
- Marketing language for use on website, newsletters, or community calendars.
- Flyer templates for posting at the library and in your community
- Program artwork or photos that can be used for website and social media postings
- Ready-to-post social media language along with photos and video clips.
Orientation Resources:
Videotaped and written materials will introduce you to the exhibit content, interactive activities, and programming resources, as well as provide an orientation to the exhibit set up, take down, packing, shipping, and maintenance. The Exhibit Introduction video is provided below and additional training resources will be made available to exhibit host sites once a scheduled exhibit check out date is confirmed.
Dino-Story Training Video 1_Exhibit Introduction.mp4 from MNCH on Vimeo.
$300 for a 4-week check-out period
This fee helps cover the cost of shipping and maintenance of the exhibit as it travels around the state. The fee will be payable 30 days prior to the scheduled check out date.
Affordable for a reason
The Museum Adventures project seeks to increase access to STEM education learning experiences for youth and family audiences in rural Oregon communities. By offering high-quality resources at a low cost to public libraries and other community organizations, it will increase the capacity of those organizations to provide rich, STEM-related programming for the public.
Shipping costs are included in the flat rate exhibit loan fee and logistics for delivery and pick up will be coordinated directly with locations.
The exhibit ships in four large cardboard crates and a hard plastic suitcase.
Each crate weighs between 50 and 65 pounds and measures 34" x 24" x 12". Handles make each crate easy for two people to carry and the crates can be stacked. A wheeled cart is provided in crate A. The crates can become a part of the exhibit display if table space or storage space is limited.
Contact the Outreach Program at mnchoutreach@uoregon.edu or 541-346-5019.
This project was made possible in part by an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon.