Beaty Biodiversity MuseumUBC Science
Description
As Vancouver’s natural history museum, they invite you on a journey to discover the interconnectedness of all life on Earth, and our role in preserving these delicate systems.
Explore the university’s spectacular biological collections, with 20,000 square feet of exhibits, from insects to birds! Among our two million treasured specimens is a 26-metre-long blue whale skeleton suspended in the atrium, dinosaur trackways from BC’s early Cretaceous period, and myriad fossils, mammals, reptiles, and plants from around our region and across the planet.
Through their collections, interactive activities and regularly changing art exhibitions, you can learn more about the biodiversity of British Columbia, Canada, and the world.
Why Biodiversity?
The Beaty Biodiversity Museum works to illuminate how biodiversity evolved, how it is maintained, why it matters to humans, and how we can conserve it. We aim to nurture the sense of wonder that many feel in the hope that we can work together to preserve it, and perhaps even study it as scientists.
Scientists study life’s diversity in order to understand common principles underlying the biology of all species, to understand how our ecosystems came to be and how they function, and to learn how to act sustainably. Since the early 20th century, researchers at UBC have archived specimens of the many species they have studied in our natural history collections.
These specimens, over two million so far, hold precious information about species and ecosystems of the past and present, and will act as time capsules to scientists centuries in the future.
Get hands-on in the Allan Yap Discovery Lab, and take in a documentary in the Allan Yap Theatre to discover how their blue whale skeleton made it from Prince Edward Island to Vancouver!
Don’t forget to visit their gift shop to pick up a souvenir for nature enthusiasts of all ages, as well as prints of selected specimens from our collections.
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