Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice™
January 30 – May 23
Long before the Midwest was populated by corn fields and cows, dinosaurs roamed the land. A brand-new exhibit created by Minnesota Children’s Museum will allow children and adults to explore dinosaur habitats to better understand how these mysterious animals lived and use inquiry skills to examine what they left behind.
Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice™, opening, Jan. 30 at the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma, transports families back to the Cretaceous Period (145 – 65 million years ago), the time when large dinosaurs last roamed the earth.
Children will go face-to-face with the prehistoric world and meet dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes. The exhibit, created for children ages 3 to 10, will feature two distinct environments and a variety of activities. A Field Research Station allows children to step into the role of paleontologist by uncovering fossils with brushes and creating drawings of the dinosaur environment using fossil rubbings and tracings.
Places of Power: Painted Photographs of Sacred Landscapes by Corson Hirschfeld
January 6 – March 28
The exhibit will be displayed in the museum’s second-floor Higginbotham gallery, and features breathtaking, hand-painted photographs of ancient, sacred spaces including cultural and archaeological sites, cultural landscapes and petroglyphs from over 20 different countries.
Hirschfeld came to Norman in 2006 to be with his wife, Tassie Hirschfeld, who is a professor in the Department of Anthropology in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences. In his earlier days, he was a herpetologist studying reptiles and amphibians, and he also had a long career as a studio photographer in Cincinnati before moving to Norman. His creative talents included writing, and he published three suspense novels before moving to Norman.
To celebrate the opening and enrich the exhibit, Kelley Hays-Gilpin, curator of anthropology at the Museum of Northern Arizona and professor of anthropology at Northern Arizona University, will present an online lecture on sacred places in the Southwest, including rock art. The Sam Noble Museum will co-host this presentation with the Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 21. The event will be free, but advance registration is required. Register online for the event here.
