Burpee Museum in Rockford Illinois

[smt126]

My kids and I made a trip to the Burpee museum in Rockford Illinois twice in the last 2 months. There is a children's museum that is housed in an interconnected building if you are visiting with children. We got in free to the Burpee museum with our Milwaukee Public Museum membership, so worth a check if you are a member of a museum. I try to find museums that are half price or free with our membership for our family to travel to, and the astc pass that comes with most museum memberships makes these memberships more than worth the money. The museum itself is pretty easy to find, with free parking, which is a nice change up from most of the museums we go to.

 

The museum has a juvenile t-rex named Jane, which is what the museum is probably most famous for. I've included a pictures below of it(although it got chopped a little trying to fit in the nameplate). On this same main level there is a room filled with triceratops and related skulls, some real, some casts. There's also the typical set of chronologic fossils that one can find on the main and 2nd floor. The 2nd floor also has a bunch of minerals in a couple display cases. In the lower level, they have a pretty decent assortment of green river fish, as well as a prep lab, which one of the weekends had its window open with a graduate student explaining what he was doing. He was very friendly and we talked for a few about prepping of fossils. The upper level of the museum has a modern history area, along with a kids room that has a bunch of things like puzzles, dress up, etc for kids. The museum itself is probably a tenth of the size of the Field Museum, which is obviously the more famous museum in Illinois. However, if you're in the area and want to kill an hour or 2, it's worth checking out in my opinion. 

 

 

[Fruitbat]

Looks like a nice little museum with a respectable collection.  Thanks for sharing!  I'm assuming that they have some fossil-related activities for the kids to indulge in...right?

 

-Joe

[digit]

Looks like a fine museum. Need to make time to go visit when I'm up there.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Tidgy's Dad]

Quite a nice layout, and some nice exhibits. 

I'd certainly pay a visit if I were in the area. 

[smt126]

11 hours ago, Fruitbat said:

Looks like a nice little museum with a respectable collection.  Thanks for sharing!  I'm assuming that they have some fossil-related activities for the kids to indulge in...right?

 

-Joe

They didn't have any kids activities when we were there, but I'm sure they probably have activity classes you can sign up for if you are a member or live in the area. There was a kids area that was self serve. They had stuffed dinosaur tails the kids could put on, a Dino dig area, a few terrariums, puzzles, and a bunch of random skulls, bones, and furs to touch.