BELLE FOURCHE—The time has come for a new mini exhibit at the Tri-State Museum. The latest mini exhibit is entitled Oh Rats! and it made its debut on Saturday, September 20.
The Museum held a reception on opening day to welcome the eerie display to its temporary home. Refreshments were provided and Red Onion Marketplace made treats.
Just in time for the spooky season, the creepy crawly rodents came to educate kids and adults alike on their history. “We needed a fall Halloween kind of themed mini exhibit for this season and we’ve done spiders and we’ve done bats—so let’s see what else—how about rats,” explained Jean Maher, Assistant Director.
And she would know, she is the one who hatched idea for the rats exhibit. Of course everyone at the museum helped in pulling it all together. Maher explained, “I mounted all the boards and found all the pictures and mounted them, then came up with a design, the backdrop and the lights and now I’m in the process of making the title board.” Jada Udager gathered the artifacts used in the display, while Kristi Thielen spent her time researching and writing the storyboards and the touchscreen quiz and Kim Reausaw developed the touchscreen quiz.
The Museum team spends a lot of hours putting the displays together. “I’d say a couple of eight hour days scattered here and there and Kristi does a lot of research to make the boards, it is a long process.” As soon as they finish one display, they begin to work on the next.
Maher said there is a lot to learn about rats and she got to learn so much while putting the display together. She is excited for others to learn about the tiny creatures. “There’s a lot to learn about rats,” she explained. “One thing, how prolific they are—very prolific. I think on one of the boards out there, it says one rat, over the course of the year, can have 15,000 babies and each one of those has babies!”
Some other things you can learn at the museum about rats include rat ancestry and travel, their body shape and abilities, rat myths, lab rats and rat nests among many more topics. There are books for kids to read, Mr. Pack Rat Really Wants That, Pie Rats and Don’t Judge a Rat by Its Friends. A take home workbook full of coloring pages, word searches, quizzes and writing pages is available to kids.
If you get a chance, stop by and see the latest mini exhibit at the Tri-State Museum before it leaves. It runs through December 12. The next mini exhibit on the schedule is about Greeting Cards.
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