The Museums for All access program is expanding in Eugene. Participating arts and cultural sites offer discounted or free entry to individuals and families with an Oregon Trail card.

Ancient hunters used a rock-shelter in the Oregon desert to butcher camels, bison, mountain sheep, and horses during the Ice Age.

Featuring 13 high-quality images of the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, the exhibit showcases images taken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s James Webb Space Telescope. "This is truly just like Hubble (telescope) 25 years ago," said UO professor of astronomy Scott Fisher, who curated the exhibit. "We are at the beginning of a brand new kind of era of astronomy."

Historically, museums across the U.S. have taken a detached, scholarly, and archaic view of Native Americans. But over the past decade especially, there’s been a push by Native advocates and their supporters to “decolonize” – or alternately, “Indigenize” – these institutions, including in Oregon.

Oregon officially recognized Indigenous Peoples Day in 2021, joining a growing number of states honoring the history, culture and ongoing contributions of Native communities.

On Thursday, April 4, the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History Education Manager Mia Jackson unpacked the Native Innovation Museum Adventures traveling exhibit at its first stop in Grand Ronde.

Roughly 13,000 years ago, Ice Age animals such as saber-toothed cats, the American lion and mammoths started going extinct in the Los Angeles basin, about a thousand years before their extinction in other parts of North America.

“This exhibit is unique because I think that we… everybody looks up at the night sky and sees the stars are laid before us,” said Lexie Briggs. “But I think that having these images and being able to get close to them and feel part of a larger sort of cosmos is really, really cool.”

Some of the libraries in Douglas County hosted Oregon Rocks! during the summer of 2023, and are looking to host the new summer program offered in 2024. “I think that the Museum of Natural and Cultural History does a fantastic job with their educational outreach,”

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an official Oregon state holiday devoted to commemorating Indigenous peoples’ culture and history. It lands on Columbus Day, this year, as a counter-celebration to acknowledge the injustices Native American tribes have faced at the hands of European colonizers.