BRAND NEW WILD MUSIC EXHIBIT PROVIDES A MUST-SEE, MUST-DO,
MUST-HEAR EXPERIENCE
Wild Music: Sounds & Songs of Life opens February at ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum
Whales compose, bullfrogs chorus, songbirds greet the dawn, and people everywhere sing and dance. What do we all have in common? Visitors of all ages will find out in February, when Wild Music: Sounds & Songs of Life, a brand new, hands-on exhibit that explores sound and music in nature and in life, makes its debut at ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum located at 1500 E Main St. in Ashland, Oregon.
Wild Music invites visitors of all ages to expand their understanding of what makes music. Through whimsical, hands-on activities, they’ll not only hear the music that surrounds them every day, but they’ll see and even feel it too. They’ll discover that nature is filled with “musicians” that create distinct musical masterpieces to communicate with and relate to one another. And they’ll explore how human music is inspired by the music of other living creatures – from tiny insects to giant whales.
Highlights of Wild Music include:
Three different “soundscapes” that invite visitors to explore sound and music that comes from the ocean, the forest, and the city. Visitors will learn to interpret spectrograms, or “pictures,” of bird songs, learn what whale cries tell us about the animal’s life cycle, see samples of instruments from around the world, experiment with how sound travels underwater, explore how music influences memory, and more.
The Jamming Room, a soundproof practice studio where visitors can use pre-recorded audio soundscapes, animal voices, percussion instruments, and live vocals to compose their own songs.
The Bioacoustic Lab, where visitors can experiment with how the human voice works and how it compares to that of other animals, specifically birds. Here, visitors can explore a model of the human larynx and the bird syrinx, use an electrolarynx to “speak” without using their voices, and use a set of vibrating metal reeds to “feel” sound.
The Power of Sound and Music Theater, where visitors can sit back, relax, and experience sounds from around the world. The seven-minute, sound-driven video demonstrates – both visually and audibly – how animals use sound to identify themselves, communicate, and form and nurture social groups.
ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum is proud to be partnering with Rogue World Music and local organizations around the Rogue Valley to provide unique programming at the Museum for the exhibit’s duration (Saturday, February 2 – Monday, September 2). This exhibit is made possible by Richard and Elizabeth LeVitt, a Community Grant of the Oregon Community Foundation, Lithia 4 Kids, the Olsrud Family Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation, the Jackson County Cultural Coalition and Anonymous donors.
Pterosaurs explores what a pterosaur is (and is not), when and where they lived, how they moved and ate, and how diverse the Pterosauria order is.
The exhibit is geared towards a 6th-grade reading level, but families with both younger and older children will find things to do. Compare yourselves against the scale model of the Quetzalcoatlus, the largest pterosaur known at 18 feet tall and with wingspan of 31 feet.
Examine the fossils of the more-commonly known Pteronodon and Pterodacytl species to see the variety of sizes and shapes that a pterosaur had.
For those looking for an interactive, virtual-reality environment, two stations are set up so that you can pretend to be a pterosaur, flying through the sky to catch your dinner of bugs, or to avoid being eaten for dinner yourself!
Release your artistic side with a third VR station that allows you to investigate the colors, feathers, skin, blades, bills and wings that pterosaurs had, and design your own! As the summer progresses, additional stations and options will be added to the exhibit, so be sure to visit more than once to see how the exhibit changes and grows.
Entry to the exhibit is included with the price of admission to the museum, and the exhibit will be open to the public from April 28th through December 31st. Starting in May, the museum’s days and hours will change to Tuesday-Sunday, 10AM – 5PM for both the academic year and summer months.
and people everywhere sing and dance. What do we all have in common? Visitors of all ages will find out in February, when Wild Music: Sounds & Songs of Life, a brand new, hands-on exhibit that explores sound and music in nature and in life, makes its debut at ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum located at 1500 E Main St. in Ashland, Oregon.
be partnering with Rogue World Music and local organizations around the Rogue Valley to provide unique programming at the Museum for the exhibit’s duration (Saturday, February 2 – Monday, September 2). This exhibit is made possible by Richard and Elizabeth LeVitt, a Community Grant of the Oregon Community Foundation, Lithia 4 Kids, the Olsrud Family Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation, the Jackson County Cultural Coalition and Anonymous donors.
