Our Trip To The Natural History Museum

This summer I’ve been trying to take the kids on a little road trip about once a week in order to entertain the troops with something besides TV, iPad, or playing around the house. And if those trips can be entertaining and educational, all the better.  So Gary and I decided that the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman, OK would be a great place for the kids and us to stay out of the heat and spend some family time together. When we walked in, I was immediately impressed. A large fossil of a dinosaur head and neck greets you and invites you to the first room that is full of animal facts, fossils, and taxidermied (stuffed) animals. The kids loved it. Heck, Gary and I loved it.

But then, we rounded the bend to the next room, which I quickly dubbed as the Evolution room. As we continued walking through this room, I began kicking myself for not thinking to prepare my kids that they might see some information deemed as facts that aren’t Biblical. Then, a museum employee came up to our family and began telling us that the display of plant-like creatures we were looking at were actually animals from million of years ago before they evolved into an animal that needed teeth and legs to move.  I then spent the rest of the time we were in the Evolution room discussing why I thought this or that wasn’t true with my youngest. To be honest, by the time we left the room, I was frustrated and irritated that we had come here.

Irritation quickly melted away as I mentally made a plan of what books I had on hand and information on the internet that I could go over with the kids when we got home to discuss and show them why we believe in Creation instead of Evolution. This could be a good thing, a great thing even. Things were looking up by the time we reached the second floor.

On the second floor, there were many, many animals native to Oklahoma. Everything from buffalo, fish, birds, deer, tarantulas, bats, and more. It was almost like walking through the actual lands in Oklahoma and seeing the animals up close and personal.

There was even this beautiful beaver. Yes, a beaver can be beautiful. Cute, even.

There was also a whole section with Indian artifacts that was amazing. Here’s the kids sitting in a canoe, which we learned would have been a painstaking process for them to carve out of a tree trunk.

When we got home, we spent 2 hours researching Creation, the age of the Earth, and the happenings in Genesis on the Internet and in these wonderful books that I bought last year when our church had a guest speaker from Answers in Genesis. The kids came up with question after question and we found Biblical answers for all of them. So, am I glad we made the trek to the museum? Yes, because the conversation it sparked afterwards was even more brilliant than looking at the creatures, from enormous to tiny, that God created.

I think Answers in Genesis is an awesome place to begin your research and discussion with your kids, coworkers, or anyone else that will listen.  If you want to check out their website, please go to AnswersInGenesis.org. According to their website, “Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.”